THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

J.  Lorenz  Sporer 


Engra  v&t  ty  Joseph  £ro  v/n  -from,  a  2 


RENAISSANCE  IN   ITALY 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE 


Jn  Ctoo  farts 


BY 


JOHN    ADDINGTON    SYMONDS 

Author  of 
•Studies  of  tkt  Greek  Petit,"  "Skttchet  I'M  Italy  and  Gr***,"  ctt. 


"Questo  provincia  pare  nata  per  risuscitare  le  cose  morte. 
come  si  ft  visto  della  Poesia,  dclla  Pittura  e  delta  Scultura." 

MACH.:  Arte  delta  Gutrra 


PART    I 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY 


College 
Library 


PREFACE. 


THIS  work  on  the  Renaissance  in  Italy,  of  which  I  now 
give  the  last  two  volumes  to  the  public,  was  designed 
and  executed  on  the  plan  of  an  essay  or  analytical 
inquiry,  rather  than  on  that  which  is  appropriate  to  a 
continuous  history.  Each  of  its  four  parts — the  Age  of 
the  Despots,  the  Revival  of  Learning,  the  Fine  Arts,  and 
Italian  Literature — stood  in  my  mind  for  a  section ;  each 
chapter  for  a  paragraph;  each  paragraph  for  a  sentence. 
At  the  same  time,  it  was  intended  to  make  the  first  three 
parts  subsidiary  and  introductory  to  the  fourth,  for  which 
accordingly  a  wider  space  and  a  more  minute  method  of 
treatment  were  reserved.  The  first  volume  was  meant  to 
explain  the  social  and  political  conditions  of  Italy ;  the 
second  to  relate  the  exploration  of  the  classical  past  which 
those  conditions  necessitated,  and  which  determined  the 
intellectual  activity  of  the  Italians  ;  the  third  to  exhibit 
the  bias  of  this  people  toward  figurative  art,  and  briefly 
to  touch  upon  its  various  manifestations ;  in  order  that, 
finally,  a  correct  point  of  view  might  be  obtained  for 
judging  of  their  national  literature  in  its  strength  and 
limitations.  Literature  must  always  prove  the  surest  guide 
to  the  investigator  of  a  people's  character  at  some  decisive 


vi  PREFACE. 

epoch.  To  literature,  therefore,  I  felt  that  the  plan  of  my 
book  allowed  me  to  devote  two  volumes. 

The  subject  of  my  inquiry  rendered  the  method  I  have 
described,  not  only  natural  but  necessary.  Yet  there  are 
special  disadvantages,  to  which  progressive  history  is  not 
liable,  in  publishing  a  book  of  this  sort  by  installments. 
Readers  of  the  earlier  parts  cannot  form  a  just  conception 
of  the  scope  and  object  of  the  whole.  They  cannot  per- 
ceive the  relation  of  its  several  sections  to  each  other,  or 
give  the  author  credit  for  his  exercise  of  judgment  in  the 
marshaling  and  development  of  topics.  They  criticise  each 
portion  independently,  and  desire  a  comprehensiveness  in 
parts  which  would  have  been  injurious  to  the  total  scheme. 
Furthermore,  this  kind  of  book  sorely  needs  an  Index,  and 
its  plan  renders  a  general  Index,  such  as  will  be  found  at 
the  end  of  the  last  volume,  more  valuable  than  one  made 
separately  for  each  part. 

Of  these  disadvantages  I  have  been  rendered  sensible 
during  the  progress  of  publication  through  the  last  six 
years.  Yet  I  have  gained  some  compensation  in  the  fact 
that  the  demand  for  a  second  edition  of  the  first  volume 
has  enabled  me  to  make  that  portion  of  the  work  more 
adequate. 

With  regard  to  authorities  consulted  in  these  two  con- 
cluding volumes,  I  have  special  pleasure  in  recording  none 
— with  only  insignificant  exceptions — but  Italian  names. 
The  Italians  have  lately  made  vigorous  strides  in  the  direc- 
tion of  sound  historical  research  and  scientific  literary 
criticism.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  labors  of 


PREFACE.  Vll 

this  generation  are  rapidly  creating  a  radical  change  in 
the  views  hitherto  accepted  concerning  the  origins  and 
the  development  of  Italian  literature.  Theories  based  on 
rational  investigation  and  philosophical  study  are  displac- 
ing the  academical  opinions  of  the  last  century.  The 
Italians  are  forming  for  themselves  a  just  conception  of 
their  past,  at  the  same  time  that  they  are  consolidating 
their  newly-gained  political  unity. 

To  dwell  upon  the  works  of  Francesco  de  Sanctis  and 
Pasquale  Villari  is  hardly  necessary  here.  The  former  is 
perhaps  less  illustrious  by  official  dignity  than  by  his  elo- 
quent Storia  delta  Letteratura  Italiana.  The  latter  has 
gained  European  reputation  as  the  biographer  of  Savon- 
arola and  Machiavelli,  the  historian  of  Florence  at  their 
epoch.  But  English  readers  are  probably  not  so  familiar 
with  acute  and  accurate  criticism  of  Giosue  Carducci ; 
with  the  erudition  of  Alessandro  d'  Ancona,  and  the  volu- 
minous history  of  the  veteran  Cesare  Cantu ;  with  the 
intelligence  and  facile  pen  of  Adolfo  Bartoli ;  with  the 
philological  researches  of  Napoleone  Caix,  and  Francesco 
Fiorentino's  philosophical  studies ;  with  Rajna's  patient 
labors  in  one  branch  of  literary  history,  and  Monaci's  dis- 
coveries in  another;  with  the  miscellaneous  contributions 
to  scholarship  and  learning  made  by  men  like  Comparetti, 
Guasti,  D'  Ovidio,  Rubieri,  Milanesi,  Campori,  Passano, 
Biagi,  Pitre,  Tigri,  Vigo,  Giudici,  Fracassetti,  Fanfani, 
Bonghi,  Grion,  Mussafia,  Morsolin,  Del  Lungo,  Virgili. 
While  alluding  thus  briefly  to  students  and  writers,  I 
should  be  sorry  to  omit  the  names  of  those  publishers — 


Viii  PREFACE. 

the  Florentine  Lemonnier,  Barbara,  Sansoni ;  the  Neapoli- 
tan Morano ;  the  Palermitan  Lauriel ;  the  Pisan  Vico  and 
Nistri ;  the  Bolognese  Romagnoli  and  Zanichelli — through 
whose  spirited  energy  so  many  works  of  erudition  have 
seen  the  light. 

I  have  mentioned  names  almost  at  random,  passing 
over  (not  through  forgetfulness,  but  because  space  com- 
pels me)  many  writers  to  whom  I  owe  weighty  obliga- 
tions. The  notes  and  references  in  these  volumes  will,  I 
trust,  contain  acknowledgment  sufficient  to  atone  for  omis- 
sions in  this  place. 

Not  a  few  of  these  distinguished  men  hold  professorial 
appointments  ;  and  it  is  clear  that  they  are  forming  stu- 
dents in  the  great  Italian  cities,  to  continue  and  com- 
plete their  labors.  Very  much  remains  to  be  explored  in 
the  field  of  Italian  literary  history.  The  future  promises 
a  harvest  of  discovery  scarcely  less  rich  than  that  of  the 
last  half-century.  On  many  moot  points  we  can  at  pres- 
ent express  but  partial  or  provisional  judgments.  The 
historian  of  the  Renaissance  must  feel  that  his  work, 
when  soundest,  may  be  doomed  to  be  superseded,  and 
when  freshest,  will  ere  long  seem  antiquated.  So  rapid 
is  the  intellectual  movement  now  taking  place  in  Italy. 

In  conclusion,  it  remains  for  me  to  add  that  certain 
passages  in  Chapter  II.  have  been  reproduced  from  an 
article  by  me  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  while  some  trans- 
lations from  Poliziano  and  Boiardo,  together  with  portions 
of  the  critical  remarks  upon  those  poets,  were  first  pub- 
lished, a  few  years  since,  in  the  Fortnightly  Review.  From 


PREFACE.  IX 

the  Fortnightly  Review,  again,  I   have  extracted  the  trans- 
lation of  ten  sonnets  by  Folgore  da  San  Gemignano. 

In  quoting  from  Italian  writers,  in  the  course  of  this 
literary  history,  I  have  found  it  best  to  follow  no  uniform 
plan ;  but,  as  each  occasion  demanded,  I  have  given  the 
Italian  text,  or  else  an  English  version,  or  in  some  cases 
both  the  original  and  a  translation.  To  explain  the  mo- 
tives for  my  decision  in  every  particular,  would  involve 
too  much  expenditure  of  space.  I  may,  however,  add  that 
the  verse-translations  in  these  volumes  are  all  from  my 
pen,  and  have  been  made  at  various  times  for  the  special 
purpose  of  this  work. 

DAVOS:  March,  1881. 


CONTENTS 

OF 

THE    FIRST    PART, 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  ORIGINS. 

PAGE 

The  period  from  1300  to  1530 — Its  Division  into  Three  Sub-Periods 
— Tardy  Development  of  the  Italian  Language — Latin  and  Roman 
Memories — Political  Struggles  and  Legal  Studies — Conditions 
of  Latin  Culture  in  Italy  during  the  Middle  Ages — Want  of 
National  Legends — The  Literatures  of  Langue  d'Oc  and  Langue 
d'Oi'l  cultivated  by  Italians — Franco-Italian  Hybrid — Provengal 
Lyrics — French  Chansons  de  Geste — Carolingian  and  Arthurian 
Romances — Formation  of  Italian  Dialects — Sicilian  School  of 
Court  Poets — Frederick  II. — Problem  of  the  Lingua  Aulica — 
Forms  of  Poetry  and  Meters  fixed — General  Character  of  the 
Sicilian  Style — Rustic  Latin  and  Modern  Italian — Superiority  of 
Tuscan — The  De  Eloquio — Plebeian  Literature — Moral  Works 
in  Rhyme— Emergence  of  Prose  in  the  Thirteenth  Century — 
Political  Songs — Popular  Lyrics — Religious  Hymns — Process  of 
Tuscanization — Transference  of  the  Literary  Center  from  Sicily 
to  Tuscany — Guittone  of  Arezzo — Bolognese  School — Guide  Gui- 
nicelli — King  Enzio's  Envoy  to  Tuscany — Florentine  Companies 
of  Pleasure — Folgore  de  San  Gemignano — The  Guelf  City  .  .  I 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE  TRIUMVIRATE. 

Chivalrous  Poetry — Ideal  of  Chivalrous  Love — Bolognese  Erudi- 
tion— New  Meaning  given  to  the  Ideal — Metaphysics  of  the 
Florentine  School  of  Lyrists — Guido  Cavalcanti — Philosophical 
Poems — Popular  Songs — Cino  of  Pistoja— Dante's  Vita  Nuova 
— Beatrice  in  the  Convito  and  the  Paradiso — The  Preparation 
for  the  Divine  Comedy  in  Literature — Allegory — The  Divine 

xi 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

MM 

Comedy — Petrarch's  Position  in  Life — His  Conception  of  Hu- 
manism— Conception  of  Italy — His  Treatment  of  Chivalrous 
Love — Beatrice  and  Laura — The  Canzoniere — Boccaccio,  the 
Florentine  Bourgeois — His  Point  of  View — His  Abandonment 
of  the  Chivalrous  Standpoint — His  Devotion  to  Art — Antici- 
pates the  Renaissance — The  Decameron — Commedia  Umana — 
Precursors  of  Boccaccio — Novels — Carmina  Vagorum — Plan  of 
the  Book — Its  Moral  Character — The  Visione  Amoroso, — Boccac- 
cio's Descriptions — The  Teseide — The  Rime — The  Filocopo — The 
Filostrato — The  Ameto,  Fiammetta,  Ntnfale,  Corbaccio — Prose 
before  Boccaccio — Fioretti  di  San  Francesco  and  Decameron 
compared — Influence  of  Boccaccio  over  the  Prose  Style  of  the 
Renaissance — His  Death — Close  of  the  Fourteenth  Century — 
Sacchetti's  Lament .  .  .  59 

CHAPTER   III. 

THE   TRANSITION. 

The  Church,  Chivalry,  the  Nation — The  National  Element  in  Ital- 
ian Literature — Florence — Italy  between  1373  and  1490 — Re- 
nascent Nationality — Absorption  in  Scholarship — Vernacular 
Literature  follows  an  Obscure  Course — Final  Junction  of  the 
Humanistic  and  Popular  Currents — Renascence  of  Italian — The 
Italian  Temperament — Importance  of  the  Quattrocento — Sac- 
chetti's Novels — Ser  Giovanni's  Pecorone — Sacchetti's  and  Ser 
Giovanni's  Poetry — Lyrics  of  the  Villa  and  the  Piazza — Nicol6 
Soldanieri — Alesso  Donati — His  Realistic  Poems — Followers  of 
Dante  and  Petrarch— Political  Poetry  of  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibel- 
lines — Fazio  degli  Uberti — Saviozzo  da  Siena — Elegies  on  Dante 
— Sacchetti's  Guelf  Poems — Advent  of  the  Bourgeoisie — Discour- 
agement of  the  Age— Fazio's  Dittamondo — Rome  and  Alvernia — 
Frezzi's  Quadrireg-z'o—Dantesque  Imitation — Blending  of  Clas- 
sical and  Medieval  Motives — Matteo  Palmieri's  Citta  di  Vita — 
The  Fate  of  Terza  Rima — Catherine  of  Siena — Her  Letters — S. 
Bernardino's  Sermons  —  Salutati's  Letters — Alessandra  degli 
Strozzi — Florentine's  Annalists — Giov.  Cavalcanti — Corio's  His- 
tory of  Milan — Matarazzo's  Chronicle  of  Perugia — Masuccio  and 
his  Novellino — His  Style  and  Genius — Alberti — Born  in  Exile — 
His  Feeling  for  Italian — Enthusiasm  for  the  Roman  Past— The 
Treatise  on  the  Family — Its  Plan — Digression  on  the  Problem  of 
its  Authorship — Pandolfini  or  Alberti — The  Deiciarchia — Tran- 
quillita  delV  Animo — Teogenio— Alberti 's  Religion— Dedication 
of  the  Treatise  on  Painting — Minor  Works  in  Prose  on  Love — 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

PACK 

Ecatomfila,  Amz'rta,  Deifiria,  etc. — Misogynism — Novel  of  ippo- 
lito  and  Leonora — Alberti's  Poetry — Review  of  Alberti's  Char- 
acter and  his  Relation  to  the  Age — Francesco  Colonna — The 
Hypnerotomachia  Poltphili — Its  Style — Its  Importance  as  a 
Work  of  the  Transition — A  Romance  of  Art,  Love,  Humanism 
— The  Allegory — Polia — Antiquity — Relation  of  this  Book  to 
Boccaccio  and  Valla — It  Foreshadows  the  Renaissance  .  .139 

CHAPTER   IV. 

POPULAR  SECULAR  POETRY. 

Separation  between  Cultivated  Persons  and  the  People — Italian  de- 
spised by  the  Learned — Contempt  for  Vernacular  Literature — 
The  Certamen  Coronarium — Literature  of  Instruction  for  the 
Proletariate — Growth  of  Italian  Prose — Abundance  of  Popular 
Poetry — The  People  in  the  Quattrocento  take  the  Lead — Quali- 
ties of  Italian  Genius — Arthurian  and  Carolingian  Romances — / 
Realt  di  Francia — Andrea  of  Berberino  and  his  Works — Numer- 
ous Romances  in  Prose  and  Verse — Positive  Spirit — Versified 
Tales  from  Boccaccio — Popular  Legends — Ginevra  degli  Almieri 
— Novel  of  //  Grasso — Histories  in  Verse — Lamenti — The  Poets 
of  flfe  People — Cantatort  in  Banca — Antonio  Pucci — His  Ser- 
mintesi — Political  Songs  —  Satires  —  Burchiello — His  Life  and 
Writings — Dance-Songs — Derived  from  Cultivated  Literature,  or 
produced  by  the  People — Poliziano — Love-Songs — Rispetti  and 
Stornelli — The  Special  Meaning  of  Strambottt — Diffusion  of  this 
Poetry  over  Italy — Its  Permanence — Question  of  its  Original 
Home — Intercommunication  and  Exchange  of  Dialects — Incate- 
nature  and  Rappresaglie — Traveling  in  Medieval  Italy — The 
Subject-Matter  of  this  Poetry — Deficiency  in  Ballad  Elements 
— Canti  Monferrini — The  Ballad  of  L .  Awelenato  and  Lord 
Ronald 234 

CHAPTER   V. 

POPULAR    RELIGIOUS    POETRY. 

The  Thirteenth  Century— Outburst  of  Flagellant  Fanaticism — The 
Battuti,  Biancht,  Discipltnati — Acquire  the  name  of  Laudesi — 
Jacopone  da  Todi — His  Life — His  Hymns — The  Corrotto — Fran- 
ciscan Poetry — Tresatti's  Collection — Grades  of  Spiritual  Ecstasy 
— Lauds  of  the  Confraternities — Benivieni — Feo  Belcari  and  the 
Florentine  Hymn-writers — Relation  to  Secular  Dance-songs — 
'  —  Origins  of  the  Theater — Italy  had  hardly  any  true  Miracle  Plays 
—  Umbrian  Divozioni — The  Laud  becomes  Dramatic — Passion 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAG* 

Plays — Medieval  Properties — The  Stage  in  Church  or  in  the 
Oratory — The  Sacra  Rappresentazione — A  Florentine  Species — 
Fraternities  for  Boys — Names  of  the  Festa — Theory  of  its  Origin 
— Shows  in  Medieval  Italy — Pageants  of  S.  John's  Day  at  Flor- 
ence— Their  Machinery  —  Florentine  Ingegnieri — Forty-three 
Plays  in  D'  Ancona's  Collection — Their  Authors — The  Prodigal 
Son — Elements  of  Farce — Interludes  and  Music — Three  Classes 
of  Sacre  Rappresentazioni — Biblical  Subjects — Legends  of  Saints 
— Popular  Novelle — Conversion  of  the  Magdalen — Analysis  of 
Plays ,  279 

CHAPTER   VI. 

LORENZO   DE'  MEDICI   AND  POLIZIANO. 

Period  from  1470  to  1530 — Methods  of  treating  it — By  Chronology — 
By  Places — By  Subjects — Renascence  of  Italian — At  Florence, 
Ferrara,  Naples — The  New  Italy— Forty  Years  of  Peace — Lorenzo 
de'  Medici — His  Admiration  for  and  Judgment  of  Italian  Poetry — 
His  Privileges  as  a  Patron — His  Rime — The  Death  of  Simo- 
netta  —  Lucrezia  Donati  —  Lorenzo's  Descriptive  Power  —  The 
Selve — The  Ambra — La  Nencia — I  Beoni — His  Sacred  Poems — 
Carnival  and  Dance  Songs — Carri  and  Trionfi — Savonarola — The 
Mask  of  Penitence — Leo  X.  in  Florence,  1513 — Pageant  of  the 
Golden  Age — Angelo  Poliziano — His  Place  in  Italian  Literature — 
Le  Stanze — Treatment  of  the  Octave  Stanza — Court  Poetry — 
Mechanism  and  Adornment — The  Orfeo — Orpheus,  the  Ideal  of 
the  Cinque  Cento — Its  Dramatic  Qualities — Chorus  of  Maenads — 
Poliziano's  Love  Poems — Rispetti — Florentine  Love — La  Bella 
Simonetta — Study  and  Country  Life 359 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PULCI   AND   BOIARDO. 

The  Romantic  Epic — Its  Plebeian  Origin — The  Popular  Poet's  Stand- 
point— The  Pulci  Family — The  Carolingian  Cycle — Turpin — 
Chanson  de  Roland — Historical  Basis — Growth  of  the  Myth  of 
Roland— Causes  of  its  Popularity  in  Italy — Burlesque  Elements 
— The  Morgante  Maggiore — Adventures  in  Paynimry — Ronces- 
valles — Episodes  introduced  by  the  Poet — Sources  in  Older  Poems 
— The  Treason  of  Gano— Pulci's  Characters— His  Artistic  Pur- 
pose—  His  Levity  and  Humor  —  Margutte — Astarotte — Pulci's 
bourgeois  Spirit — Boiardo — His  Life — Feudalism  in  Italy — Boi- 
ardo's  Humor — His  Enthusiasm  for  Knighthood — His  Relation 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

to  Renaissance  Art — Plot  of  the  Orlando  Innamorato — Angelica 
— Mechanism  of  the  Poem — Creation  of  Characters — Orlando 
and  Rinaldo — Ruggiero — Lesser  Heroes — The  Women — Love — 
Friendship — Courtesy — Orlando  and  Agricane  at  Albracca — 
Natural  Delineation  of  Passions — Speed  of  Narration — Style  ofc, 
Versification — Classical  and  Medieval  Legends — The  Punishment 
of  Rinaldo — The  Tale  of  Narcissus — Treatment  of  Mythology — 
Treatment  of  Magic — Fate  of  the  Orlando  Innamorato  .  .  425 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

ARIOSTO. 

Ancestry  and  Birth  of  Ariosto — His  Education — His  Father's  Death 
— Life  at  Reggio — Enters  Ippolito  d'  Este's  Service — Character 
of  the  Cardinal — Court  Life — Composition  and  Publication  of  the 
Furioso — Quiet  Life  at  Ferrara — Comedies — Governorship  of 
Garfagnana — His  Son  Virginio — Last  Eight  Years — Death — 
Character  and  Habits — The  Satires — Latin  Elegies  and  Lyrics — 
Analysis  of  the  Satires — Ippolito's  Service — Choice  of  a  Wife — 
Life  at  Court  and  Place-hunting — Miseries  at  Garfagnana — Vir- 
ginio's  Education — Autobiographical  and  Satirical  Elements — 
Ariosto's  Philosophy  of  Life — Minor  Poems — Alessandra  Benucci 
— Ovidian  Elegies — Madrigals  and  Sonnets — Ariosto's  Concep- 
tion of  Love 493 


APPENDICES. 

No.  I. — Note  on  Italian  Heroic  Verse 523 

No.  II. — Ten  Sonnets  translated  from  Folgore  da  San  Gemignano  .  526 
No.  III. — Translations  from  Alesso  Donati 531 

No.  IV. — Jacopone's   "  Presepio,"  "  Corrotto,"  and   "  Cantico   dell' 

Amore  Superardente,"  translated  into  English  Verse     .  532 

No.  V. — Passages  translated  from  the  "  Morgante    Maggiore "  of 

Pulci 543 

No.  VI. — Translations  of  Elegiac  Verses  by  Girolamo  Benivieni  and 

Michelangelo  Buonarroti 561 


RENAISSANCE  IN   ITALY. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE  ORIGINS. 

The  period  from  130010  1530—115  Division  into  Three  Sub-Periods — 
Tardy  Development  of  the  Italian  Language — Latin  and  Roman 
Memories — Political  Struggles  and  Legal  Studies — Conditions  of 
Latin  Culture  in  Italy  during  the  Middle  Ages — Want  of  National 
Legends — The  Literatures  of  Langue  d'Oc  and  Langue  d'Oil  cul- 
tivated by  Italians — Franco-Italian  Hybrid — Provencal  Lyrics — French 
Chansons  de  Geste — Carolingian  and  Arthurian  Romances — Forma- 
tion of  Italian  Dialects — Sicilian  School  of  Court  Poets — Frederick 
II. — Problem  of  the  Lingua  Autica — Forms  of  Poetry  and  Meters 
fixed — General  Character  of  the  Sicilian  Style — Rustic  Latin  and 
Modern  Italian — Superiority  of  Tuscan — The  De  Eloquio — Plebeian 
Literature — Moral  Works  in  Rhyme — Emergence  of  Prose  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  —  Political  Songs  —  Popular  Lyrics  —  Religious 
Hymns — Process  of  Tuscanization — Transference  of  the  Literary 
Center  from  Sicily  to  Tuscany — Guittone  of  Arezzo — Bolognese 
School — Guido  Guinicelli — King  Enzio's  Envoy  to  Tuscany — Floren- 
tine Companies  of  Pleasure — Folgore  da  San  Gemignano— The  Guelf 
City. 

BETWEEN  1300,  the  date  of  Dante's  vision,  and  1530, 
the  date  of  the  fall  of  Florence,  the  greatest  work  of 
the  Italians  in  art  and  literature  was  accomplished. 
These  two  hundred  and  thirty  years  may  be  divided 
into  three  nearly  equal  periods.  The  first  ends  with 
Boccaccio's  death  in  1375.  The  second  lasts  until 
the  birth  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  in  1448.  The  third 
embraces  the  golden  age  of  the  Renaissance.  In 
the  first  period  Italian  literature  was  formed.  In 


2  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

the  second  intervened  the  studies  of  the  humanists' 
In  the  third,  these  studies  were  carried  over  to  the 
profit  of  the  mother  tongue.  The  first  period  ex- 
tends over  seventy-five  years ;  the  second  over 
seventy-three  ;  the  third  over  eighty-two.  With  the 
first  date,  1300,  we  may  connect  the  jubilee  of  Boni- 
face and  the  translation  of  the  Papal  See  to  Avignon 
(1304)  ;  with  the  second,  1375,  the  formation  of  the 
Albizzi  oligarchy  in  Florence  (1381)  ;  with  the  third, 
1448,  the  capture  of  Constantinople  (1453)  ;  and 
with  the  fourth,  1530,  the  death  of  Ariosto  (1533) 
and  the  new  direction  given  to  the  Papal  policy  by 
the  Sack  of  Rome  (1527). 

The  chronological  limits  assigned  to  the  Italian 
Renaissance  in  the  first  volume  of  this  work  would 
confine  the  history  of  literature  to  about  eighty  years 
between  1453  and  1527 ;  and  it  will  be  seen  by  refer- 
ence to  the  foregoing  paragraph  that  it  would  not 
be  impossible  to  isolate  that  span  of  time.  In  deal- 
ing with  Renaissance  literature,  it  so  happens  that 
strict  boundaries  can  be  better  observed  than  in  the 
case  of  politics,  fine  arts,  or  learning.  Yet  to  adhere 
to  this  section  of  literary  history  without  adverting 
to  the  antecedent  periods,  would  be  to  break  the 
chain  of  national  development,  which  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  Italian  language  is  even  more  important 
than  in  any  other  branch  of  culture.  If  the  renas- 
cence of  the  arts  must  be  traced  from  Cimabue  and 
Pisano,  the  spirit  of  the  race,  as  it  expressed  itself 
in  modern  speech,  demands  a  still  more  retrogressive 
survey,  in  order  to  render  the  account  of  its  ultimate 
results  intelligible. 


THREE  PERIODS   OF  LITERATURE.  3 

The  first  and  most  brilliant  age  of  Italian  literature 
ended  with  Boccaccio,  who  traced  the  lines  on  which 
the  future  labors  of  the  nation  were  conducted.  It 
was  succeeded  by  nearly  a  century  of  Greek  and  Latin 
scholarship.  To  study  the  masterpieces  of  Dante  and 
Petrarch,  or  to  practice  their  language,  was  thought 
beneath  the  dignity  of  men  like  Valla,  Poggio,  or 
Pontano.  But  toward  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, chiefly  through  the  influence  of  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici  and  his  courtiers,  a  strong  interest  in  the 
mother-tongue  revived.  Therefore  the  vernacular 
literature  of  the  Renaissance,  as  compared  with  that  of 
the  expiring  middle  ages,  was  itself  a  renascence  or  re- 
vival. It  reverted  to  the  models  furnished  by  Dante, 
Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio,  and  combined  them  with  the 
classics,  which  had  for  so  long  a  while  eclipsed  their 
fame.  Before  proceeding  to  trace  the  course  of  the  re- 
vival, which  forms  the  special  subject  of  these  volumes, 
it  will  be  needful  to  review  the  literature  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  and  to  show  under  what  forms  that 
literature  survived  among  the  people  during  the 
classical  enthusiasm  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Only 
by  this  antecedent  investigation  can  the  new  direction 
taken  by  the  genius  of  the  combined  Italian  nation, 
after  the  decline  of  scholarship,  be  understood.  Thus 
the  three  sub-periods  of  the  two  hundred  and  thirty 
years  above  described  may  be  severally  named  the  me- 
dieval, the  humanistic,  and  the  renascent.  To  demon- 
strate their  connection  and  final  explication  is  my  pur- 
pose in  this  last  section  of  my  work  on  the  Renaissance. 

In  the  development  of  a  modern  language  Italy 
showed  less  precocity  than  other  European  nations. 


4  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITAL  Y. 

The  causes  of  this  tardiness  are  not  far  to  seek. 
Latin,  the  universal  tongue  of  medieval  culture,  lay 
closer  to  the  dialects  of  the  peninsula  than  to  the 
native  speech  of  Celtic  and  Teutonic  races,  for  whom 
the  official  language  of  the  Empire  and  the  Church 
always  exhibited  a  foreign  character.  In  Italy  the 
ancient  speech  of  culture  was  at  home :  and  nothing 
had  happened  to  weaken  its  supremacy.  The  literary 
needs  of  the  Italians  were  satisfied  with  Latin  ;  nor 
did  the  genius  of  the  new  people  make  a  vigorous 
effort  to  fashion  for  itself  a  vehicle  of  utterance. 
Traditions  of  Roman  education  lingered  in  the 
Lombard  cities,  which  boasted  of  secular  schools, 
where  grammarians  and  rhetoricians  taught  their  art 
according  to  antique  method,  long  after  the  culture 
of  the  North  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  ecclesias- 
tics.1 When  Charlemagne  sought  to  resuscitate 
learning,  he  had  recourse  to  these  Italian  teachers  ; 
and  the  importance  of  the  distinction  between 
Italians  and  Franks  or  Germans,  in  this  respect,  was 
felt  so  late  as  the  eleventh  century.  Some  verses  in 
the  Panegyric  addressed  by  Wippo  to  the  Emperor 
Henry  III.  brings  the  case  so  vividly  before  us  that 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  transcribe  them  here8 : 

Tune  fac  edictum  per  terram  Teutonicorum, 
Quilibet  ut  dives  sibi  natos  instruat  omnes. 

1  See  Giesebrecht,  De  Litter  arum  studiis  apud  Italos  primtt  medti 
cevi  seecuh's,  Berolini,  1845,  p.  15. 

1  See  Giesebrecht,  op.  cit.  p.  19.  Wippo  recommends  the  Emperor 
to  compel  his  subjects  to  educate  their  sons  in  letters  and  law.  tt  was 
by  such  studies  that  ancient  Rome  acquired  her  greatness.  In  Italy  at 
the  present  time,  he  says,  all  boys  pass  from  the  games  of  childhood  into 
schools.  It  is  only  the  Teutons  who  think  it  idle  or  disgraceful  for  a 
man  to  study  unless  he  be  intended  for  a  clerical  career. 


ROMAN  BIAS  OF   THE  ITALIANS.  5 

Litterulis,  legemque  suam  persuadeat  illis, 
Ut,  cum  principibus  placitandi  venerit  usus, 
Quisque  suis  libris  exemplum  proferat  illis. 
Moribus  his  dudum  vivebat  Roma  decenter: 
His  studiis  tantos  potuit  vincire  tyrannos. 
Hoc  servant  Itali  post  prima  crepundia  cuncti; 
Et  sudare  scholis  mandatur  tota  juventus. 
Solis  Teutonicis  vacuum  vel  turpe  videtur, 
Ut  doceant  aliquem  nisi  clericus  accipiatur. 

While  the  Italians  thus  continued  the  rhetorical  and 
legal  studies  of  the  ancients,  they  did  not  forget  that 
they  were  representatives  and  descendants  of  the 
Romans.  The  Republic  and  the  Empire  were  for 
them  the  two  most  glorious  epochs  of  their  own  his- 
tory; and  any  attempt  which  they  made  to  revive 
either  literature  or  art,  was  imitative  of  the  past.  They 
were  not  in  the  position  to  take  a  new  departure.  No 
popular  epic,  like  the  Niebelungen  of  the  Teuton,  the 
Arthurian  legend  of  the  Celt,  the  Song  of  Roland  of 
the  Frank,  or  the  Spanish  Cid,  could  have  sprung 
up  on  Italian  soil.  The  material  was  wanting  to  a 
race  that  knew  its  own  antiquity.  Even  when  an 
Italian  undertook  a  digest  of  the  Tale  of  Troy  or  of 
the  Life  of  Alexander,  he  converted  the  metrical 
romances  of  the  middle  ages  into  prose,  obeying  an 
instinct  which  led  him  to  regard  the  classical  past 
as  part  of  his  own  history.1  In  like  manner,  the 
recollection  of  a  previous  municipal  organization  in 
the  communes,  together  with  the  growing  ideal  of  a 
Roman  Empire,  which  should  restore  Italy  to  her 
place  of  sovereignty  among  the  nations,  proved  seri- 
ous obstacles  to  the  unification  of  the  people.  We 

1  See  Adolf o  Bartoli,   Sloria  del/a  Letter atur a  Italiana,  vol.  i.  pp. 
142-158,  and  p.  167,  on  Guido  delle  Colonne  and  Qualichino  da  Spoleto. 


6  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

have  already  seen  that  this  reversion  of  the  popular 
imagination  to  Rome  may  be  reckoned  among  the 
reasons  why  the  victory  of  Legnano  and  the  Peace  of 
Constance  were  comparatively  fruitless.1  Politically, 
socially,  and  intellectually,  the  Italians  persisted  in  a 
dream  of  their  Latin  destiny,  long  after  the  feasibility 
of  realizing  that  vision  had  been  destroyed,  and  when 
the  modern  era  had  already  formed  itself  upon  a  new 
type  in  the  federation  of  the  younger  races. 

Of  hardly  less  importance,  as  negative  influences, 
were  the  failure  of  feudalism  to  take  firm  hold  upon 
Italian  soil,  and  the  defect  of  its  ideal,  chivalry.  The 
literature  of  trouveres,  troubadours,  and  minne- 
singers grew  up  and  flourished  in  the  castles  of  the 
North  ;  nor  was  it  until  the  Italians,  under  the  sway 
of  the  Hohenstauffen  princes,  possessed  something 
analogous  to  a  Provengal  Court,  that  the  right  condi- 
tions for  the  development  of  literary  art  in  the  ver- 
nacular were  attained.  From  this  point  of  view 
Dante's  phrase  of  lingua  aulica,.\.Q  express  the  dialect 
of  culture,  is  both  scientific  and  significant.  It  will 
further  appear  in  the  course  of  this  chapter  that  the 
earliest  dawn  of  Italian  literature  can  be  traced  to  those 
minor  Courts  of  Piedmont  and  the  Trevisian  Marches, 
where  the  people  borrowed  the  forms  of  feudal  society 
more  sympathetically  than  elsewhere  in  Italy. 

It  must  moreover  be  remembered  that  during  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  the  force  of  the  Italian 
people  was  concentrated  upon  two  great  political 
struggles,  the  contest  of  the  Church  with  the  Empire, 
and  the  War  of  Lombard  Independence.  In  the 
1  See  above,  vol.  \.  Age  of  the  Despots,  2nd  ed.  chap.  2. 


TARDY  GROWTH   OF  ITALIAN  LANGUAGE.  ^ 

prosecution  of  these  quarrels,  the  Italians  lost  sight 
of  letters,  art,  theology.  They  became  a  race  of 
statesmen  and  jurists.  Their  greatest  divines  and 
metaphysicians  wandered  northward  into  France 
and  England.  Their  most  favored  university,  that 
of  Bologna,  acquired  a  world-famed  reputation  as  a 
school  of  jurisprudence.  Legal  studies  and  political 
activity  occupied  the  attention  of  their  ablest  men. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  overrate  the  magnitude  of 
the  work  done  during  these  two  centuries.  In  the 
course  of  them,  the  Italians  gave  final  form  to  the 
organism  of  the  Papacy,  which  must  be  regarded  as 
a  product  of  their  constructive  genius.  They  de- 
veloped Republican  governments  of  differing  types 
in  each  of  their  great  cities,  and  made,  for  the  first 
time  since  the  foundation  of  the  Empire,  the  name 
of  People  sovereign.  They  resuscitated  Roman  law, 
and  reorganized  the  commerce  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Remaining  loyal  to  the  Empire  as  an  idea,  they 
shook  off  the  yoke  of  the  German  Csesars ;  and 
while  the  Papacy  was  their  own  handiwork,  they, 
alone  of  European  nations,  viewed  it  politically  rather 
than  religiously,  and  so  weakened  it  as  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  Babylonian  captivity  at  Avignon. 

Thus,  through  the  people's  familiarity  with  Latin; 
through  the  survival  of  Roman  grammar  schools  and 
the  memory  of  Roman  local  institutions ;  through  a 
paramount  and  all-pervading  enthusiasm  for  the 
Roman  past ;  through  the  lack  of  new  legendary 
and  epical  material ;  through  the  failure  of  feudalism, 
and  through  the  political  ferment  attending  on  the 
Wars  of  Investment  and  Independence,  the  Italians 


RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

were  slow  to  produce  a  modern  language  and  a  litera- 
ture of  modern  type.  They  came  late  into  the  field ; 
and  when  they  took  their  place  at  last,  their  language 
presented  a  striking  parallel  to  their  political  condi- 
tion. As  they  failed  to  acquire  a  solid  nationality, 
but  remained  split  up  into  petty  States,  united  by  a 
Pan-Italic  sentiment ;  so  they  failed  to  form  a  com- 
mon speech.  The  written  Italian  of  the  future  was 
used  in  its  integrity  by  no  one  province  ;  each  district 
clinging  to  its  dialect  with  obstinate  pride.1  Yet, 
though  the  race  was  tardy  in  literary  development, 
and  though  the  tongue  of  Ariosto  has  never  become 
so  thoroughly  Italian  as  that  of  Shakspere  is  English 
or  that  of  Moliere  is  French ;  still,  on  their  first  ap- 
pearance, the  Italian  masters  proved  themselves  at 
once  capable  of  work  maturer  and  more  monumental 
than  any  which  had  been  produced  in  modern  Europe. 
Their  education  during  two  centuries  of  strife  was 
not  without  effect.  The  conditions  of  burghership 
in  their  free  communes,  the  stirring  of  their  political 
energies,  the  liberty  of  their  popolo,  and  the  keen 
sense  of  reality  developed  by  their  legal  studies,  pre- 
pared men  like  Dante  and  Guido  Cavalcanti  for 
solving  the  problems  of  art  in  a  resolute,  mature  and 
manly  spirit,  fully  conscious  of  the  aim  before  them, 
and  self-possessed  in  the  assurance  of  adult  faculties. 
In  the  first,  or,  as  it  may  be  termed,  the  Latin 

1  The  Italians  did  not  even  begin  to  reflect  upon  their  lingua  volgare 
until  the  special  characters  and  temperaments  of  their  chief  States  had 
been  fixed  and  formed.  In  other  words,  their  social  and  political  develop- 
ment far  anticipated  their  literary  evolution.  There  remained  no  center 
from  which  the  vulgar  tongue  could  radiate,  absorbing  local  dialects. 
Each  State  was  itself  a  center,  perpetuating  dialect. 


MEDIEVAL  ITALIAN  SCHOLARSHIP.  9 

period  of  medieval  culture,  there  was  not  much  to  dis- 
tinguish the  Italians  from  the  rest  of  Europe.  Those 
Lombard  schools,  of  which  mention  has  already 
been  made,  did  indeed  maintain  the  traditions  of 
decadent  classical  education  more  alive  than  among 
the  peoples  of  the  North.  Better  Latin,  and  particu- 
larly more  fluent  Latin  verse,  was  written  during  the 
dark  ages  in  Italy  than  elsewhere.1  Still  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  whole  credit  of  medieval  Latin 
hymnology,  and  of  its  curious  counterpart,  the  songs 
of  the  wandering  students,  should  be  attributed  to  the 
Italians.  While  we  can  refer  the  Dies  Ira,  Lauda 
Sion,  Pange  Lingua  and  Stabat  Mater  with  tolerable 
certainty  to  Italian  poets ;  while  there  is  abundant 
internal  evidence  to  prove  that  some  of  the  best 
Carmina  Burana  were  composed  in  Italy  and  under 
Italian  influences;  yet  Paris,  the  focus  of  theological 
and  ecclesiastical  learning,  as  Bologna  was  the  center 
of  legal  studies,  must  be  regarded  as  the  headquarters 
of  that  literary  movement  which  gave  the  rhyming 
hexameters  of  Bernard  of  Morlas  and  the  lyrics  of  the 
Goliardi  to  Europe.2  It  seems  clear  that  we  cannot 
ascribe  to  the  Italians  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  any  superiority  in  the  use  of  Latin  over  the 
school  of  France.  Their  previous  vantage-ground 
had  been  lost  in  the  political  distractions  of  their 
country.  At  the  same  time,  they  were  the  first  jurists 

1  See  Du  MeVil,  Potsies  Populaires  Latines  anterteurts  au  douzieme 
Sihle,  Paris,  1843. 

1  Regarding  the  authorship  of  Latin  hymns  see  the  notes  in  Mone's 
Hymni  Latzni  Medii  sEvi,  Friburgi  Brisgoviae,  1853,  3  vols.  For  the 
French  origin  of  Carmina  Burana  see  Die  lateinischen  Vagantenlieder 
der  Mittelalters,  von  Oscar  Hubatsch,  Gorlitz,  1870. 


10  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

and  the  hardiest,  if  not  the  most  philosophical,  free- 
thinkers of  Europe. 

This  is  a  point  which  demands  at  least  a  passing 
notice.  Their  practical  studies,  and  the  example  of 
an  emperor  at  war  with  Christendom,  helped  to  form 
a  sect  of  epicureans  in  Italy,  for  whom  nothing  sanc- 
tioned by  ecclesiastical  authority  was  sacred.  To 
these  pioneers  of  modern  incredulity  Dante  assigned 
not  the  least  striking  Cantos  of  the  Inferno.  Their 
appearance  in  the  thirteenth  century,  during  the 
ascendancy  of  Latin  culture,  before  the  people  had 
acquired  a  language,  is  one  of  the  first  manifestations 
of  a  national  bias  toward  positive  modes  of  thought 
and  feeling,  which  we  recognize  alike  in  Boccaccio 
and  Ariosto,  Machiavelli  and  Guicciardini,  Pompon- 
azzi  and  the  speculators  of  the  South  Italian  School. 
It  was  the  quality,  in  fact,  which  fitted  the  Italians  for 
their  work  in  the  Renaissance.  As  metaphysicians, 
in  the  stricter  sense  of  that  word,  they  have  been 
surpassed  by  Northern  races.  Their  religious  sense 
has  never  been  so  vivid,  nor  their  opposition  to 
established  creeds  so  earnest.  But  throughout 
modern  history  their  great  men  have  manifested  a 
practical  and  negative  good  sense,  worldly  in  its 
moral  tone,  impervious  to  pietistic  influences,  antago- 
nistic to  mysticism,  contented  with  concrete  reality, 
which  has  distinguished  them  from  the  more  fervent, 
boyish,  sanguine,  and  imaginative  enthusiasts  of 
Northern  Europe.  We  are  tempted  to  speculate 
whether,  as  they  were  the  heirs  of  ancient  civility 
and  grew  up  among  the  ruins  of  Roman  greatness, 
so  they  were  born  spiritually  old  and  disillusioned. 


ROMAN  MEMORIES.  II 

Another  point  which  distinguished  the  Italians  in 
this  Latin  period  of  their  literature,  was  the  absence  of 
the  legendary  or  myth-making  faculty.  It  is  not 
merely  that  they  formed  no  epic,  and  gave  birth  to  no 
great  Saga;  but  they  accepted  the  fabulous  matter, 
transmitted  to  them  from  other  nations,  in  a  prosaic 
and  positive  spirit.  This  does  not  imply  that  they 
exercised  a  critical  faculty,  or  passed  judgment  on  the 
products  of  the  medieval  fancy.  On  the  contrary, 
they  took  legend  for  fact,  and  treated  it  as  the 
material  of  history.  Hector,  Alexander,  and  Attila 
were  stripped  of  their  romantic  environments,  and  pre- 
sented in  the  cold  prose  of  a  digest,  as  persons  whose  acts 
could  be  sententiously  narrated.  This  attitude  of  the 
Italians  toward  the  Saga  is  by  no  means  insignificant. 
When  their  poets  came  to  treat  Arthurian  or  Carol- 
ingian  fables  in  the  epics  of  Orlando,  they  appre- 
hended them  in  the  same  positive  spirit,  adding  ele- 
ments of  irony  and  satire. 

For  the  rest,  the  Italians  shared  with  other  nations 
the  common  stock  of  medieval  literature — Chronicles, 
Encyclopaedias,  Epitomes,  Moralizations,  Histories  in 
verse,  Rhetorical  Summaries,  and  prose  abstracts  of 
Universal  History — the  meager  debris  and  detritus  of 
the  huge  moraines  carried  down  by  extinct  classic 
glaciers.  It  is  not  needful  to  dwell  upon  this  aspect 
of  the  national  culture,  since  it  presents  no  specific 
features.  What  is  most  to  our  purpose,  is  to  note 
the  affectionate  remembrance  of  Rome  and  Roman 
worthies,  which  endured  in  each  great  town.  The 
people,  as  distinguished  from  the  feudal  nobility,  were 
and  ever  felt  themselves  to  be  the  heirs  of  the  old 


12  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Roman  population.  Therefore  the  soldiers  on  guard 
against  the  Huns  at  Modena  in  924,  sang  in  their 
barbarous  Latin  verse  of  Hector  and  the  Capitol1: 

Dum  Hector  vigil  exstitit  in  TroYa, 
Non  earn  cepit  fraudulenta  Gratia: 
Prima  quiete  dormiente  TroYa, 
Laxavit  Sinon  fallax  claustra  perfida  .  .  . 
Vigili  voce  avis  anser  Candida 
Fugavit  Gallos  ex  arce  Romulea 
Pro  qua  virtute  facta  est  argentea, 
Et  a  Romanis  adorata  ut  Dea. 

The  Tuscan  women  told  tales  of  Troy  and  Catiline 
and  Julius  Caesar 2 : 

L'altra,  traendo  alia  rocca  la  chioma, 
Favoleggiava  con  la  sua  famiglia 
De*  Troiani  e  di  Fiesole  e  di  Roma. 

A  rhyming  chronicler  of  Pisa  compared  the  battles 
of  the  burghers  against  the  Saracens  with  the  Punic 
wars.  The  tomb  of  Virgil  at  Naples  was  an  object 
for  pilgrimage,  and  one  of  the  few  spots  round  which 
a  group  of  local  legends  clustered.  The  memory  of 
Livy  added  luster  to  Padua,  and  Mussato  boasted  that 
her  walls,  like  those  of  Troy,  her  mother-city,  were 
sacrosanct.  The  memory  of  the  Plinies  ennobled 
Como,  that  of  Ovid  gave  glory  to  Sulmona,  that  of 
Tully  to  Arpino.  Florence  clung  to  the  mutilated 
statue  of  Mars  upon  her  bridge  with  almost  super- 
stitious reverence,  as  proof  of  Roman  origin;  while  Siena 
adopted  for  her  ensign  the  she-wolf  and  the  Roman 
twins.  Pagan  customs  survived,  and  were  jealously 
maintained  in  the  central  and  southern  provinces;  and 
the  name  of  the  Republic  sufficed  to  stir  Arnold's 

i  Du  Meril,  op.  tit.  p.  268.  «  Dante,  Ptiradiso,  xv. 


FRENCH  AND    PRC VENIAL   LITERATURE.  13 

revolution  in  Rome,  long  before  the  days  of  Rienzi. 
To  the  mighty  German  potentate,  King  Frederick 
Barbarossa,  attended  with  his  Northern  chivalry,  a 
handful  of  Romans  dared  to  say:  "Thou  wast  a 
stranger;  I,  the  City,  gave  thee  civic  rights.  Thou 
earnest  from  transalpine  regions;  I  have  conferred  on 
thee  the  principality."  l  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply 
these  instances.  Enough,  however,  has  been  said  to 
show  that  through  the  gloom  of  medieval  history,  be- 
fore humanism  had  begun  to  dawn,  and  while  the  other 
nations  were  creating  legends  and  popular  epics,  Italy 
maintained  a  dim  but  tenacious  sense  of  her  Roman 
past.  This  consciousness  has  here  to  be  insisted  on, 
not  merely  because  it  stood  in  the  way  of  mythopceic 
activity,  but  because  it  found  full  and  proper  satis- 
faction in  that  Revival  of  Learning  which  decided  the 
Renaissance. 

While  the  Italians  were  fighting  the  Wars  of 
Investiture  and  Independence,  two  literatures  had 
arisen  in  the  country  which  we  now  call  France.  Two 
languages,  the  langue  (foe  and  the  langue  (toll,  gave 
birth  to  two  separate  species  of  poetry.  The  master- 
product  of  the  latter  was  the  Song  of  Roland,  which, 
together  with  the  after-birth  of  Arthurian  romance, 
flooded  Europe  with  narratives,  embodying  in  a  more 
or  less  epical  form  the  ideals,  enthusiasms,  and  social 
creed  of  Chivalry.  The  former,  cultivated  in  the 
southern  provinces  that  border  on  the  Mediterranean, 
yielded  a  refined  and  courtly  fashion  of  lyrical  verse, 
which  took  the  form  of  love-songs,  battle-songs,  and 
satires,  and  which  is  now  known  as  Provencal  litera- 

»  See  Age  of  the  Despots,  p.  65. 


14  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

ture.  The  influence  of  feudal  culture,  communicated 
through  these  two  distinct  but  closely  connected 
channels,  was  soon  felt  in  Italy.  The  second  phase  of 
Italian  development  has  been  called  Lombard,  because 
it  was  chiefly  in  the  north  of  the  peninsula  that  the 
motive  force  derived  from  France  was  active.  Yet  if 
we  regard  the  matter  of  this  new  literature,  rather 
than  its  geographical  distribution,  we  shall  more 
correctly  designate  it  by  the  title  Franco-Italian.  In 
the  first  or  Latin  period,  the  Italians  used  an  ancient 
language.  They  now  adopted  not  only  the  forms  but 
also  the  speech  of  the  people  from  whom  they  received 
their  literary  impulse.  It  is  probable  that  the  Lombard 
dialects  were  still  too  rough  to  be  accommodated  to 
the  new  French  style.  The  cultivated  classes  were 
familiar  with  Latin,  and  had  felt  no  need  of  raising  the 
vernacular  above  the  bare  necessities  of  intercourse. 
But  the  superior  social  development  of  the  French 
courts  and  castles  must  be  reckoned  the  main  reason 
why  their  language  was  acclimatized  in  Italy  together 
with  their  literature.  Just  as  the  Germans  before  the 
age  of  Herder  adopted  polite  culture,  together  with  the 
French  tongue,  ready-made  from  France,  so  now  the 
Lombard  nobles,  bordering  by  the  Riviera  upon 
Provence,  borrowed  poetry,  together  with  its  diction, 
from  the  valley  of  the  Rhone.  Passing  along  the 
Genoese  coast,  crossing  the  Cottian  Alps,  and  following 
the  valley  of  the  Po,  the  languages  of  France  and 
Provence  diffused  themselves  throughout  the  North  of 
Italy.  With  the  La/ngne  d'oil  came  the  Chansons-de 
.Geste  of  the  Carolingian  Cycle  and  the  romances  of 
the  Arthurian  legend.  With  the  langue  cToc  came 


FRANCO-ITALIAN  PERIOD.  15 

the  various  forms  of  troubadour  lyrir.  Without  dis- 
placing the  local  dialects,  these  imported  languages 
were  used  and  spoken  purely  by  the  nobles;  while  a 
hybrid,  known  as  franco-  Italian r  sprang  up  for  the 
common  people  who  listened  to  the  tales  of  Roland 
and  Rinaldo  on  the  market-place.  The  district  in 
which  the  whole  mass  of  this  foreign  literature  seems 
to  have  flourished  most  at  first,  was  the  Trevisan 
March,  stretching  from  the  Adige,  along  the  Po, 
beyond  the  Brenta  and  past  Venice,  to  the  base  of  the 
Friulian  Alps.  The  Marches  of  Treviso  were  long 
known  as  La  Marca  Amoroso,  or  Gioiosa,  epithets 
which  strongly  recall  the  Provencal  phrases  of  Joie 
and  Gai  Saber,  and  which  are  familiar  to  English 
readers  of  Sir  Thomas  Mallory  in  the  name  of  Lance- 
lot's castle,  Joyous  Gard.  Exactly  to  define  the 
period  of  Trevisan  culture  would  be  difficult.  It  is 
probable  that  it  began  to  flourish  about  the  end  of  the 
twelfth,  and  declined  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  Dante  alludes  to  it  in  a  famous-  passage  of 
the  furgatory^'. 

In  sul  paese  ch'  Adige  e  Po  riga, 
Solea  valore  e  cortesia  trovarsi 
Prima  che  Federigo  avesse  briga. 

There  are  many  traces  of  advanced  French 
civilization  in  this  district,  among  which  may  be 
mentioned  the  exhibition  of  Miracle  Plays  upon  the 
French  type  at  Civitale  in  the  years  1298  and  1304, 
and  the  Castello  d"  Amore  at  Treviso  described  by 
Rolandini  in  the  year  1214.  Yet,  though  the  Tre- 
visan Marches  were  the  nucleus  of  this  Gallicizing 

i  xvl.  115. 


1 6  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

fashion,  the  use  of  French  and  Provencal  spread  widely 
through  the  North  and  down  into  the  center  of  Italy. 
Numerous  manuscripts  in  the  langue  d'cftl  attest  the 
popularity  of  the  Arthurian  romances  throughout 
Lombardy,  and  we  know  that  in  Umbria  S.  Francis 
first  composed  poetry  in  French.1  It  was  in  French, 
again,  that  Brunette  Latini  wrote  his  Tesoro.  So  late 
as  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  this  habit  had 
not  died  out.  Dante  in  the  Convito  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  stigmatize  "  those  men  of  perverse  mind  in 
Italy  who  commend  the  vulgar  tongue  of  foreigners 
and  depreciate  their  own." 

We  have  seen  that  the  language  and  the  matter 
of  this  imported  literature  were  twofold;  and  we  can 
distinguish  two  distinct  currents,  after  its  reception 
into  Italy.  The  Provencal  lyric,  as  was  natural, 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  nobles;  and  since 
feudalism  had  a  stronger  hold  upon  the  valley  of  the 
Po  than  on  any  other  district,  Lombardy  became 
the  chief  home  of  this  poetry.  Not  to  mention  the 
numerous  Provencal  singers  who  sought  fortune  and 
adventure  in  northern  Italy,  about  twenty-five  Italians, 
using  the  langue  d'oc,  may  be  numbered  between  the 
Marchese  Alberto  Malaspina,  who  held  Lunigiana  about 
1 204,  and  the  Maestro  Ferrara,  who  lived  at  the  Court 
of  Azzo  VII.  of  Este.2  These  were  for  the  most  part 
courtiers  and  imperial  feudatories;  and  only  two  were 
Tuscans.  The  person  of  one  of  them,  Sordello,  is 
familiar  to  every  reader  of  the  Purgatory. 

'  See  D'Ancona,  Poesia  Popolart,  p.  II,  note. 

*  See  Carducci,  Dello  Svolgimento  delta  Letteratura  National*, 
p.  29. 


ARTHURIAN  AND  CAROLINGIAN  ROMANCE,  i; 

The  second  tide  of  influence  passed  from  North- 
ern France  together  with  the  epics  of  chivalry.  But  its 
operation  was  not  so  simple  as  that  of  the  Provengal  lyric. 
We  can  trace  for  instance  a  marked  difference  between 
the  effect  produced  by  the  Chansons  de  Geste  and  that 
of  the  Arthurian  tales.  The  latter  seem  to  have  been 
appropriated  by  the  nobles,  while  the  former  found 
acceptance  with  the  people.  Nor  was  this  unnatural. 
At  the  opening  of  the  twelfth  century  the  Carolingian 
Cycle  had  begun  to  lose  its  vogue  among  the  polished 
aristocracy  of  France.  That  uncompromising  history 
of  warfare  hardly  suited  a  society  which  had  developed 
the  courtesy  and  the  romance  of  chivalry.  It  repre- 
sented the  manners  of  an  antecedent  age  of  feudalism. 
Therefore  the  tales  of  the  Round  Table  arose  to 
satisfy  the  needs  of  knights  and  ladies,  whose  thoughts 
were  turned  to  love,  the  chase,  the  tournament,  and 
errantry.  The  Arthurian  myth  idealized  their  newer 
and  more  refined  type  of  feudal  civility.  It  was  upon 
the  material  of  this  romantic  Epic  that  the  nobles  of 
North  Italy  fastened  with  the  greatest  eagerness.  No 
one  has  forgotten  how  the  tragedy  of  Lancelot  and 
Guinevere  proved,  in  a  later  day,  the  ruin  of 
Francesca  and  her  lover.1  The  people,  on  the  other 
hand,  took  livelier  interest  in  the  songs  of  Roland  and 
Charlemagne.  The  Chansons  de  Geste  formed  the 
stock  in  trade  of  those  Cantatores  Francigenarum> 
who  crowded  the  streets  and  squares  of  Lombard 
cities.2  The  exchange  of  courtesies  and  refined  send- 

1  Romagnoli  has  reprinted  some  specimens  of  the  fllustre  et  Farnosa 
Historia  di  Lancillotlo  del  Lago,  Bologna,  1862. 

1  Muratori  in  Antiq.  Ital.  Diss.  xxx.  p.  351,  quotes  a  decree  of  the 
Bolognese  Commune,  dated  1288,  to  the  effect  that  Cantatores  Francige 


1 8  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

ments  between  a  Tristram  and  Iseult  or  a  Lancelot 
and  Guinevere  must  naturally  have  been  less  attractive 
to  a  rude  populace  than  narratives  of  battle  with  the 
Infidel,  and  Roland's  horn,  and  Gano's  treason,  and 
Rinaldo's  quarrels  with  his  liege.  In  the  Arthurian 
Cycle  names  and  places  alike — Avalon,  Camelot, 
Winchester,  Gawain,  Galahaut  —  were  distant  and 
ill-adapted  to  Italian  ears.1  The  whole  tissue  of  the 
romance,  moreover,  was  imaginative.  The  Carol- 
ingian  Cycle,  on  the  contrary,  introduced  personages 
with  a  good  right  to  be  considered  historical,  and 
dwelt  upon  familiar  names  and  traditional  ideas.  We 
are  not,  therefore,  surprised  to  find  that  this  Epic  took 
a  strong  hold  on  the  popular  imagination,  and  so 
penetrated  the  Italian  race  as  to  assume  a  new  form 
on  Italian  soil,  while  the  Arthurian  romance  survived 
as  a  pastime  of  the  upper  classes,  and  underwent  no 
important  metamorphosis  at  their  hands.  In  the 
course  of  this  volume,  I  shall  have  to  show  how,  when 
Italian  literature  emerged  again  from  the  people 
after  nearly  a  century  of  neglect,  it  was  the  trans- 
formed tale  of  Charlemagne  and  Roland  which 
supplied  the  Italian  nation  with  its  master-works  of 
epic  poetry — the  Morgante  and  the  two  Orlandos. 
The  Lombard,  or  rather  the  Franco -Italian  period 

narum  in  plateis  Communis  omnino  morari  non  possint.    They  had 
become  a  public  nuisance  and  impeded  traffic. 

1  In  the  Cento  Novelle  there  are  several  Arthurian  stories.  The  ru- 
brics of  one  or  two  will  suffice  to  show  how  the  names  were  Italianized. 
Qui  con  fa  come  la  damigella  di  Sciitot  moriper  amore  di  Lanciallotto  de 
Lac.  Nov.  Ixxxii.  Qui  conta  delta  reina  Isotta  e  di  m.  Tristano  dt 
Leonis.  Nov.  Ixv.  In  the  Historic  di  Lancillotto,  cited  above,  Sir  Kay 
becomes  Keux;  Gawain  is  Gauuati.  In  the  Ta-vola  Ritonda,  Morderette 
stands  for  Mordred,  Rando  di  Benoiche  for  Ban  of  Ben  wick,  Lotto  d'Or 
%ania  for  Lot  of  Orkcney 


FRANCO-ITALIAN  HYBRID.  19 

is  marked  by  the  adoption  of  a  foreign  language  and 
foreign  fashions.  Literature  at  this  stage  was  exotic 
and  artificial;  but  the  legacy  transmitted  to  the  future 
was  of  vast  importance.  On  the  one  side,  the  courtly 
rhymers  who  versified  in  the  Provencal  dialect,  be- 
queathed to  Sicily  and  Tuscany  the  chivalrous  lyric  of 
love,  which  was  destined  to  take  its  final  and  fairest 
form  from  Dante  and  Petrarch.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  populace  who  listened  to  the  Song  of  Roland  on 
the  market-place,  prepared  the  necessary  conditions 
for  a  specific  and  eminently  characteristic  product  of 
Italian  genius.  Without  a  national  epic,  the  Italians 
were  forced  to  borrow  from  the  French.  But  what 
they  borrowed,  they  transmuted — not  merely  adding 
new  material,  like  the  tale  of  Gano's  treason  and  the 
fiction  of  Orlando's  birth  at  Sutri,  but  importing  their 
own  spirit,  positive,  ironical  and  incredulous,  into  the 
substance  of  the  legend. 

In  the  course  of  Italianizing  the  tale  of  Roland,  the 
native  dialects  made  their  first  effort  to  assume  a 
literary  form.  We  possess  sufficient  MS.  evidence  to 
prove  that  the  Franco-Italian  language  of  the  songs 
recited  to  the  Lombard  townsfolk,  was  composed  by 
the  adaptation  of  local  modes  ol  speech  to  French 
originals.  The  process  was  not  one  of  pure  transla- 
tion. The  dialects  were  not  fit  for  such  performance. 
It  may  rather  be  described  as  the  attempt  of  the  dia- 
lects to  acquire  capacity  for  studied  expression.  With 
French  poems  before  them,  the  popular  rhapsodes 
introduced  dialectical  phrases,  substituted  words,  and, 
where  this  was  possible,  modified  the  style  in  favor 
of  the  dialect  they  wished  to  use.  French  still  pre- 


20  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

dominated.  But  the  hybrid  was  of  such  a  nature  that 
a  transition  from  this  mixed  jargon  to  the  dialect, 
presented  in  a  literary  shape,  was  imminent. 

There  is  sufficient  ground  for  presuming  that  the 
Italian  dialects  triumphed  simultaneously  in  all  parts 
of  the  peninsula  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century.1  This  presumption  is  founded  partly  on  the 
quotations  from  dialectical  poetry  furnished  by  Dante 
in  the  De  Eloquio,  which  prove  a  wide-spread  literary 
activity;  partly  on  fragments  recovered  from  sources 
which  can  be  referred  to  the  second  half  of  the  century. 
The  peculiar  problems  offered  by  the  conditions  of 
poetry  at  Frederick  II.'s  Court,  though  these  are  open 
to  many  contradictory  solutions,  render  the  presump 
tion  more  than  probable.  It  is  difficult  to  understand 
the  third  or  Sicilian  period  of  literature  without  hypo- 
thesizing an  antecedent  stage  of  vulgar  poetry  pro- 
duced in  local  dialects.  But,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of 
documents,  no  positive  facts  regarding  the  date  and 
mode  of  their  emergence  can  be  adduced.  We  have 
on  this  point  to  deal  with  matters  of  delicate  conjec- 
ture and  minute  inference;  and  though  it  might  seem 
logical  to  introduce  at  once  a  discussion  on  the  growth 
of  the  Italian  language,  and  its  relation  to  the  dialects 
which  were  undoubtedly  spoken  before  they  were 
committed  to  writing,  special  reasons  induce  me  to 
defer  this  topic  for  the  present. 

While  the  North  of  Italy  was  deriving  the  literature 
both  of  its  cultivated  classes  and  of  the  people  from 
France,  a  new  and  still  more  important  phase  of  evolu- 

1  See  Adolfo  Bartoli,  Storia  della  Letter  atur  a  Italiana,  vol.  ii.  chapters 
til.,  iv.,  v.,  vi.,  for  a  minute  inquiry  into  this  early  dialectical  literature 


COURT  OF  FREDERICK  II.  21 

tion  was  preparing  in  the  South.  Both  Dante  and 
Petrarch  recognize  the  Sicilian  poets  as  the  first  to 
cultivate  the  vulgar  tongue  with  any  measure  of  success, 
and  to  raise  it  to  the  dignity  of  a  literary  language.  In 
this  opinion  they  not  only  uttered  the  tradition  of 
their  age,  but  were  also  without  doubt  historically 
correct.  Whatever  view  may  be  adopted  concerning 
the  formation  of  the  lingua  illustre,  or  polished  Italian, 
from  the  dialectical  elements  already  employed  in 
local  kinds  of  poetry,  there  is  no  disputing  the  im- 
portance of  the  Sicilian  epoch.  We  cannot  fix  precise 
dates  for  its  duration.  Yet,  roughly  speaking,  it  may 
be  said  to  have  begun  in  1166,  when  troubadours  of 
some  distinction  gathered  round  the  person  of  the 
Norman  king,  William  II.,  at  Palermo,  and  to  have 
ended  in  1266,  when  Manfred  was  killed  at  the  battle 
of  Benevento.  It  culminated  during  the  reign  of 
the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  (i2io-i25o),  who  was 
himself  skilled  in  Latin  and  the  vulgar  tongues  of 
France  and  Italy,  and  who  drew  to  his  court  men  dis- 
tinguished for  their  abilities  in  science  and  literature. 
Dante  called  Frederick,  Cherico  grande.  The  author 
of  the  Cento  Novelle  described  him  as  veramente 
specchio  del  mondo  in  parlare  et  in  costumi,  and  spoke 
of  his  capital  as  the  resort  of  la  gente  eft  avea  bontadc 
.  .  .  sonatori,  trovatori,  e  belli  favellatori,  uomini  d  arti, 
giostratori,  schermitori,  d?  ogni  maniera  gente.1  The 
portrait  drawn  of  him  by  Salimbene  in  his  contem- 
porary Chronicle,  though  highly  unfavorable  to  the 
schismatic  enemy  of  Holy  Church,  proves  that  his 

i  Cento  Novelle,  Milano,  1825,  Nov.  ti.  and  xxi. 


22  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

repute  was  great  in  Italy  as  a  patron  of  letters  and 
himself  a  poet  of  no  mean  pretensions.1 

It  is  impossible  in  these  pages  to  inquire  into  the 
views  of  this  great  ruler  for  the  resuscitation  of  culture 
in  Italy,  which,  had  he  not  been  thwarted  in  his  policy 
by  the  Church,  might  have  anticipated  the  Renaissance 
by  two  centuries.  Yet  the  opinion  may  be  hazarded 
that  the  cultivation  of  Italian  as  a  literary  language 
was  due  in  no  small  measure  to  the  forethought  and 
deliberate  intention  of  an  Emperor,  who  preferred  his 
southern  to  his  northern  provinces.  Unlike  the 
Lombard  nobles,  Frederick,  while  adopting  Provencal 
literature,  gave  it  Italian  utterance.  This  seems  to 
indicate  both  purpose  and  prevision  on  his  part 
Wishing  to  found  an  Italian  dynasty,  and  to  acclima- 
tize the  civilization  of  Provence  in  his  southern  capitals, 
he  was  careful  to  promote  purely  Italian  studies. 
There  can  at  any  rate  be  no  doubt  that  during  his 
reign  and  under  his  influence  very  considerable  pro- 
gress was  made  towards  fixing  the  diction  and  the 
forms  of  poetry.  He  found  dialects,  not  merely 
spoken,  but  already  adapted  to  poetical  expression,  in 
more  than  one  district  of  Italy.  From  these  districts 
the  most  eminent  artists  flocked  to  his  Court.  It  was 
there  that  a  common  type  of  speech  was  formed, 
which,  when  the  burghers  of  Central  Italy  began  to 
emulate  the  versifiers  of  Palermo,  furnished  them  with 
an  established  style. 

How  the  lingua  aulica  came  into  being  admits  of 
much  debate.  But  we  may,  I  think,  maintain  that  the 
fundamental  dialect  from  which  it  sprang  was  Sicilian, 

1  Chronica  Fr.  Salimbene  Parmensis,  ord.  min.,  Parmae,  1857,  p.  166. 


FORMATION  OF  LANGUAGE  AND  METERS.  23 

purified  by  comparison  with  Provencal  and  Latin,  and 
largely  modified  by  Apulian  elements.  The  difficulty 
of  understanding  the  problem  is  in  part  removed  when 
we  remember  the  variety  of  representatives  from  noble 
towns  of  Italy  who  met  in  Frederick's  circle,  the  tenden- 
cies of  a  dialect  to  refine  itself  when  it  assumes  a 
literary  form,  and  the  continuous  influences  of  Court- 
life  in  common.  Italians  gathered  round  the  person 
of  the  sovereign  at  Palermo  from  their  native  cities, 
must  in  ordinary  courtesy  have  abandoned  the  crudi- 
ties of  their  respective  idioms.  This  sacrifice  could 
not  but  have  been  reciprocal;  and  since  Provencal  was 
not  spoken  to  the  exclusion  of  the  mother-tongue,  a 
generic  Italian  had  here  the  best  chance  of  develop- 
ment. That  this  generic  or  Court  Italian  was  at  root 
Sicilian,  we  have  substantial  reasons  to  believe;  but 
that  it  exactly  resembled  the  Sicilian  of  to-day,  which 
does  not  greatly  differ  from  extant  documents  of 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  century  Sicilian  dialect,  seems 
too  crude  a  supposition.1  Unfortunately,  our  evidence 
upon  this  point  is  singularly  scanty.  Few  poems  of 
the  Sicilian  period,  as  will  appear  in  the  sequel,  have 
descended  to  us  in  their  primitive  form. 

Not  only  was  a  common  language  instituted  in  the 
Court  of  Frederick;  but  the  metrical  forms  of  subse- 
quent Italian  poetry  were  either  fixed  or  suggested  by 
the  practice  of  these  early  versifiers.  Few  subjects 

1  See  the  Cronache  Siciliane,  Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1865,  the  first  ot 
which  bears  upon  its  opening  paragraph  the  date  1358.  Sicilian,  it  may 
be  said  in  passing,  presents  close  dialectical  resemblance  to  Tuscan. 
Even  the  superficial  alteration  of  the  Sicilian  u  and  /  into  the  Tuscan  o 
and  e  (e.  g.  secundu  and  putiri  into  secondo  and  potere}  effaces  the  most 
obvious  differences. 


24  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

are  involved  in  darker  obscurity  than  the  history  of 
meters — the  creation  of  rhythmical  structures  whereby 
one  national  literature  distinguishes  itself  from  another.1 
Just  as  each  writer  who  can  claim  an  individual  style 
seems  to  possess  his  own  rhythm,  his  peculiar  tune,  to 
which  his  sentences  are  cadenced,  so  each  nation  ap- 
propriates and  adheres  to  its  own  meter.  The  Italian 
^endecasyllabic,  the  French  Alexandrian,  the  English 
heroic  iambic,  are  obvious  examples.  This  selection  of 
a  characteristic  meter,  and  the  essays  through  which 
the  race  arrives  at  its  perfection,  seem  to  imply  some 
instinct,  planted  within  the  deeps  of  national  person- 
ality, whereof  the  laws  have  not  been  formulated. 
When  we  speak  of  the  genius  of  a  language,  we  do 
but  personify  this  instinct,  which  appears  to  exercise 
itself  at  an  early  period  of  national  development,  leav 
ing  for  subsequent  centuries  the  task  of  refining  and 
completing  what  had  been  projected  at  the  outset. 
Therefore,  nothing  very  distinct  can  be  asserted  about 
the  origin  of  the  hendecasyllable  iambic  line,  which 
marks  Italian  poetry.2  Yet  it  certainly  appears  among 

1  The  Italians  wavered  long  between  several  metrical  systems,  before 
they  finally  adopted  the  hendecasyllabic  line,  vi'hich  became  the  conse- 
crated rhythm  of  serious  poetry.     Carducci,  in  his  treatise  Intorno  ad 
alcune  Rime  (Imola,  Galeati,  1876),  pp.  81-89,  mav  ^e  profitably  con- 
sulted with  regard  to  early  Italian  Alexandrines.     He  points  out  tha' 
Ciullo's  Tenzone: 

Rosa  fresc*  aulentissima — c*  appar*  in  ver*  1*  estate: 
and  the  Ballata  of  the  Comari: 

Pur  bi'  del  vin,  comadr' — e  no  lo  temperare: 

together  with  numerous  compositions  ot  the  Northern  Lombard  school 
(Milan  and  Verona),  are  written  in  Alexandrines.  In  the  Lombardo- 
Sicilian  age  of  Italian  literature,  before  Bologna  acted  as  an  intermediate 
to  Florence,  this  meter  bid  fair  to  become  acclimatized.  But  the  Tuscan 
genius  determined  decisively  for  the  hendecasyllabic. 

2  See  the  Appendix  to  this  chapter  on  Italian  hemlecasyllables. 


ITALO- PROVENCAL   STYLE.  25 

the  early  specimens  of  the  Sicilian  period.  The  rhym- 
ing system  of  the  octave  stanza  may  possibly  be  traced 
in  Ciullo  d'Alcamo's  tenzonc  between  the  lover  and  his 
mistress;  though  it  still  needed  a  century  of  elabora- 
tion at  the  hands  of  popular  rispetti- writers,  to  present 
it  in  completed  form  to  Boccaccio's  muse.1  This  poem 
is  Alexandrine  in  rhythm.  Terza  rima  seems  to  be 
suggested  by  the  sonnet  of  the  Sparviere  /  while  a 
perfect  sonnet,  differing  very  little  either  in  structure  or 
in  diction  from  the  type  of  Petrarch's,  is  supplied  in 
Piero  delle  Vigne's  Peroccht  amore.  At  the  same  time 
the  highwrought  structure  of  the  Canzone,  destined  to 
play  so  triumphant  a  part  during  the  whole  period  of 
the  trecento,  receives  its  essential  outlines  from  the 
rhymers  of  this  age,  especially  from  Jacopo  da  Lentino 
and  Guido  delle  Colonne. 

Though  the  forms  and  language  of  Sicilian  poetry 
decided  the  destinies  of  Italian,  the  substance  of  this 
literature  was  far  from  being  national.  Under  its 
Italian  garb,  it  was  no  less  an  exotic  than  the  Pro- 
vengal  and  French  compositions  of  the  Lombard 
period.  After  running  a  brilliant  course  in  Provence, 
the  poetry  of  chivalrous  love  was  now  declining  to  its 
decadence.  It  had  ceased  to  be  the  spontaneous  expres- 
sion of  a  dominant  ideal,  and  had  degenerated  into  a 
pastime  for  dilettanti.  Its  style  had  become  conven- 
tional; its  phrases  fixed.  The  visionary  science  upon 
which  it  was  based,  had  to  be  studied  in  codes  of  doc- 
trine and  repeated  with  pedantic  precision.  Frederick 

'  See  Carducci,  Cantilene,  etc.  (Pisa,  1871),  pp.  58-60,  for  thirteenth- 
century  rispetti  illustrating  the  Sicilian  form  of  the  Octave  Stanza  and 
its  transformation  to  the  Tuscan  tvoe. 


»6  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

and  his  courtiers  received  it  at  the  point  of  its  extinc 
tion.  They  adhered  as  closely  as  possible  to  tradi- 
tional forms,  imitated  time-honored  models,  and  con- 
fined their  efforts  to  the  reproduction  of  the  old  art  in 
a  new  vehicle  of  language.  Therefore,  vernacular 
Italian  poetry  in  this  first  stage  of  its  existence  pre- 
sents the  curious  spectacle  of  literature  decrepit  in  the 
cradle,  hampered  with  the  euphuism  of  an  exhausted 
manner  before  it  could  move  freely,  and  taught  to 
frame  conceits  and  cold  antitheses  before  it  learned  to 
lisp. 

Such,  in  general,  may  be  said  to  have  been  the 
character  of  the  Sicilian  or  Italo- Pro  venial  style.  Yet 
a  careful  student  of  these  Canzoni,  Serventesi,  and 
Tenzoni,  will  discover  much  that  is  both  natural  and 
graceful,  much  that  is  elevated  in  thought,  much  again 
that  belongs  to  the  crude  sensuousness  of  Southern  tem- 
perament. There  is  an  unmistakable  blending  of  the 
Provengal  tradition  with  indigenous  realism,  especially 
in  such  compositions  as  the  Lament  of  Odo  delle 
Colonne,  the  Lament  of  Ruggieri  Pugliese,  and  the 
Tenzone  of  Ciullo  d'Alcamo.1  We  can  trace  a  double 
current  of  inspiration:  the  one  passing  downward  from 
the  learned  writers  of  the  Court,  the  judges,  notaries, 
and  men  of  state,  who  followed  Provengal  tradition; 
the  other  upward  from  the  people,  who  rhymed  as 
nature  taught  them:  both  mingling  in  the  composi- 
tions of  those  more  genial  poets,  who  were  able  to 

1  The  poetry  of  this  period  will  be  found  in  Trucchi,  Poesie  Inedite, 
Prato,  1846;  Poeti  del  Primo  Secolo,  Firenze,  1816;  Raccolta  di  Rime 
Antiche  Toscane,  Palermo,  Assenzio,  1817;  and  in  a  critical  edition  of 
the  Codex  Vaticanus  3793,  Le  Antiche  Rime  Volgari,  per  cura  di  A 
d*  Ancona  c  D.  Comparetti,  Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1875. 


CLOSE  OF  THE  SICILIAN  PERIOD.  ^^ 

infuse  reality  into  the  labored  form  of  their  adoption. 
What  might  have  been  the  destiny  of  Italian  literature, 
if  the  Suabian  House  had  maintained  its  hold  on  the 
Two  Sicilies,  and  this  process  of  fusion  had  been 
completed  at  Naples  or  Palermo,  cannot  even  be 
surmised. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  earliest  Italo- Pro  venial  po- 
etry is  vague,  owing  to  lack  of  genuine  Sicilian  mon- 
uments. We  can  only  trace  faint  indications  of  a  pro- 
gress toward  greater  freedom  and  more  spontaneous 
inspiration,  as  the  "  courtly  makers "  yielded  to  the 
singers  of  the  people.  The  battle  of  Benevento  ex- 
tinguished at  one  blow  both  the  hopes  of  the  Suabian 
dynasty  and  the  development  of  Sicilian  poetry. 
When  Manfred's  body  had  been  borne  naked  on  a 
donkey  from  the  battle-field  to  his  nameless  grave, 
amid  the  cries  of  Chi  compra  Manfredif  a  foreign 
troubadour,  Amerigo  di  Peguilhan,  composed  his  la- 
ment, bidding  the  serventese  pass  through  all  lands  and 
over  every  sea  to  find  the  man  who  knew  where 
Arthur  dwelt  and  when  he  would  return.  Arthur  was 
dead,  and  would  never  come  again.  Chivalry  and 
feudalism  had  held  their  brief  and  feeble  sway  in  Italy, 
and  that  was  over.  Neither  in  Lombardy  among  the 
castles,  nor  in  Sicily  within  the  Court,  throbbed  the 
real  life  of  the  Italian  nation.  That  life  was  in  the 
Communes.  It  beat  in  the  heart  of  the  people — 
especially  of  that  people ,  who  had  made  nobility  a 
crime  beside  the  Arno,  and  had  outlawed  the  Scio- 
perati  from  their  City  of  the  Flower.  What  the 
Suabian  princes  gave  to  Italy  was  the  beginning  of  a 
common  language.  It  remained  for  Tuscany  to  stamp 


28  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

that  language  with  her  image  and  superscription,  to 
fix  it  in  its  integrity  for  all  future  ages,  and  to  render 
it  the  vehicle  of  stateliest  science  and  consummate 
art. 

The  question  of  the  origin  of  the  Italian  language 
pertains  rather  to  philology  than  to  the  history  of 
culture.1  Yet  I  cannot  pass  it  wholly  by  in  silence, 
since  it  was  raised  at  an  early  period  by  the  founders 
of  Italian  literature,  who  occupied  themselves  with 
singular  sagacity  concerning  the  relations  of  the 
literary  to  the  dialectical  forms  of  speech.  Dante's 
De  Eloquio,  though  based  on  unscientific  principles  of 
analysis,  opened  a  discussion  which  exercised  the 
acutest  intellects  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

During  the  whole  Roman  period,  it  is  certain  that 
literary  Latin  differed  in  important  respects  from  the 
vulgar,  rustic  or  domestic,  language.  Thus  while  a 
Roman  gentleman  would  have  said  habeo  pulchrum 
equum,  his  groom  probably  expressed  the  same 
thought  in  words  like  these:  ego  habeo  unum  bellum 
caballum.  Between  a  graffito  scribbled  on  the  wall  of 
some  old  Roman  building — Alexander  unum  animal 
est,  for  instance — and  one  now  chalked  in  the  same 
district,  Alessandro  2  un  animale,  there  is  hardly  as 
much  difference  as  between  a  literary  Latin  sentence 
and  either  of  these  rustic  epigrams;  while  the  use  of 
such  intensitives  as  multum  and  bene,  to  express  the 

1  The  most  important  modern  works  upon  this  subject  are  three  Es- 
says by  Napoleone  Caix,  Saggio  sulla  Storia  della  Lingua  e  dci  Dia- 
letti  d'  Italia,  Parma,  1872;  Studi  di  Etimologia  Italiana  c  Romanza, 
Firenze,  1878;  Le  Origini  della  Lingua  Poetica  Italiana,  Firenze,  1880. 
D'Ovidio's  Essay  on  the  De  Eloquio  in  his  Saggi-  Critici,  Napoli,  1878, 
may  also  be  consulted  with  advantage. 


RUSTIC  AND  LITERARY  LATIN.  39 

superlative  degree,  indicate  in  vulgar  Latin  the  pres- 
ence of  a  principle  alien  to  literary  Latin  but  sympa- 
thetic to  modern  speech.  The  vulgar  or  rustic  Latin 
continued,  side  by  side  with  its  literary  counterpart, 
throughout  the  middle  ages,  forming  in  the  first  cen- 
turies of  imperial  decline  the  common  speech  of  the 
Romance  peoples,  and  gradually  assuming  those 
specific  forms  which  determined  the  French,  Spanish, 
and  Italian  types.  There  is  little  doubt  that,  could  we 
possess  ourselves  of  sufficient  documents,  we  should 
be  able  to  trace  the  stages  in  this  process.  Both 
literary  and  vulgar  Latin  suffered  transformation — the 
former  declining  in  purity,  variety,  and  vigor;  the 
latter  diverging  dialectically  into  the  constituents  of  the 
three  grand  families  of  modern  Latin.  But  the  meta- 
morphosis was  not  of  the  same  nature  in  both  cases. 
While  the  literary  language  had  been  fixed,  arrested, 
and  delivered  over  to  death,  the  vulgar  tongue  re- 
tained a  vivid  and  assimilative  life,  capable  of  biologi- 
cal transmutation.  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  are 
modes  of  its  existence  continued  under  laws  of  organic 
variety  and  change. 

It  would  be  unscientific  to  suppose  that  rustic 
Latin,  even  in  the  most  flourishing  period  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  was  identical  in  all  provinces.  From 
the  first  it  must  have  held  within  itself  the  principles 
of  differentiation.  And  when  we  consider  the  varying 
conditions  of  soil,  climate,  ethnological  admixture  and 
political  development  in  the  several  regions  of  the 
Roman  world,  together  with  the  divers  influences  of 
contiguous  or  invasive  races,  we  shall  form  some 
notion  of  the  process  by  which  the  three  languages  in 


$0  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY 

question  branched  off  from  the  common  stock  of  rustic 
Latin. 

The  same  laws  of  differentiation  hold  good  with 
regard  to  the  dialects  in  each  of  these  new  languages. 
It  is  improbable  that  absolutely  the  same  vulgar  Latin 
was  at  any  epoch  spoken  in  two  remote  districts  of  the 
same  province — on  the  Tuscan  sea-coast,  for  example, 
and  on  the  banks  of  Padus.  Even  when  the  Roman 
empire  used  one  language,  intelligible  from  the  ^Egean 
to  the  German  Ocean,  the  Italic  districts  must  have 
differed  in  their  local  vernacular.  Again,  the  same 
conditions  (climatic,  ethnological,  political,  and  so 
forth)  which  helped  to  determine  the  generic  distinc- 
tions of  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian,  determined  also 
the  specific  distinctions  of  one  Italian  dialect  from 
another.  Those  of  the  north-west,  for  instance,  in- 
clined to  Gallic,  and  those  of  the  north-east  to  Illyrian 
idiom.  Those  of  Lombardy  in  general  exhibit  a  mix- 
ture of  German  words.  Those  of  Sicily  and  the 
south  approximate  more  to  a  Spanish  type,  and  share 
the  effects  of  Greek  and  Arab  occupation.  The 
dialects  of  the  center,  especially  the  Tuscan,  show 
marked  superiority  both  in  grammatical  form  and  pho- 
netic purity  over  the  more  disintegrated  and  corrupted 
idioms  of  north  and  south.  It  might  be  suggested 
that  Tuscan,  being  less  modified  by  foreign  contact, 
continued  the  natural  life  of  the  old  rustic  Latin 
according  to  laws  of  unimpeded  self-development. 
But,  however  we  may  attempt  to  explain  this  prob- 
lem, the  fact  remains  that,  while  the  Italian  dialects 
present  affinities  which  show  them  to  be  of  one  lin- 
guistic family,  it  is  Tuscan  that  completes  and  inter- 


DIFFERENTIATION  OF  DIALECTS.  3» 

prets  them  collectively.  Tuscan  stands  to  Italian  in 
the  same  relation  as  Castilian  to  Spanish,  or  the  speech 
of  the  He  de  France  to  French.  It  is  a  dialect,  but  a 
dialect  that  realized  the  bent  and  striving  of  the  lan- 
guage. We  find  it  difficult  to  feel,  far  more  to  state, 
what  qualities  in  a  dialect  and  in  the  people  of  the 
district  who  use  it,  render  one  idiom  more  adapted 
to  literary  usage,  more  characteristic  of  the  language 
it  helps  to  constitute,  more  plastic  and  expressive  of 
national  peculiarities,  than  those  around  it.  But  the 
fact  is  certain  that  this  superiority  in  Tuscan  was 
early  recognized l ;  and  that  too  without  any  political 
advantages  in  favor  of  its  triumph.  Boniface  VIII. 
unconsciously  expressed,  perhaps,  the  truth,  when 
he  called  the  Florentines  z7  quinto  elemento.  It  was 
something  spiritually  quintessential,  something  com- 
plementary to  the  sister  dialects,  which  caused  the 
success  of  Tuscan. 

Thus,  while  literary  Latin,  though  dying  and 
almost  dead,  was  taught  in  the  grammar  schools 
and  used  by  learned  men,  the  rustic  Latin  in  the 
thirteenth  century  had  disappeared.  But  this  disap- 
pearance was  not  death.  It  was  transformation.  The 
group  of  dialects  which  represented  the  new  phase  in 
its  existence,  shared  such  common  qualities  as  proved 
them  to  have  had  original  affinity;  and  fitted  them  for 
being  recognized  as  a  single  family.  The  position, 
therefore,  of  the  Italians  at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth 

1  "  Lingua  Tusca  magis  apta  est  ad  literam  sive  literaturam  quam 
aliae  linguae,  et  ideo  magis  est  communis  et  intelligibilis."    Antonio  da 
Tempo,  born  about  1275,  says  this  in  his  Treatise  on  Italian  Poetry,  re 
cently  printed  by  Giusto  Grion,  Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1869.    See  p.  17 
of  that  worJi 


32  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

century  with  regard  to  language,  was  this.  They 
possessed  the  classic  Latin  authors  in  a  bad  state  of 
preservation,  and  studied  a  few  of  them  with  some 
minuteness,  basing  their  own  learned  style  upon  the 
imitation  of  Virgil  and  Ovid,  Cicero,  Boethius,  and  the 
rhetoricians  of  the  lower  empire.  But  at  home,  in 
their  families,  upon  the  market-place,  and  in  the 
prosecution  of  business,  they  talked  the  local  dialects, 
each  of  which  was  more  or  less  remotely  representative 
of  the  ancient  vulgar  Latin.  However  these  dialects 
might  differ,  they  formed  in  combination  a  new  lan- 
guage, distinct  from  the  parent  stock  of  Rustic  Latin, 
and  equally  distinct  from  French  and  Spanish. l 
Whatever  difficulty  an  Italian  of  Calabria  or  Friuli 
might  have  felt  in  understanding  the  Divine  Comedy, 
he  would  have  recognized  an  element  in  its  diction 
which  defined  it  from  French  or  Spanish,  and  marked 
it  out  as  proper  to  his  mother-tongue.  If  this  was 
true  of  the  refined  type  of  Tuscan  used  by  a  great 
master,  it  was  no  less  true  of  dialectical  compositions 
selected  for  the  express  purpose  of  exhibiting  their 
rudeness.  Dante  clearly  expected  contemporary 
readers  not  only  to  interpret,  but  to  appreciate  the 
shades  of  greater  and  lesser  nicety  in  the  examples  he 
culled  from  Roman,  Apulian,  Florentine  and  other 
vernacular  literatures.  This  expectation  proves  that 
he  felt  himself  to  be  dealing  with  a  group  of  dialects 
which,  taken  collectively,  formed  a  common  idiom. 

i  This  fact  was  recognized  by  Dante.  He  speaks  of  the  languages  of 
Si,  Oil.  and  Oc,  meaning  Italian,  French,  and  Spanish.  De  Eloquio,  lib. 
i.  cap.  8.  Dante  points  out  their  differences,  but  does  not  neglect  then 
community  of  origin. 


WANT   OF  A    CAPITAL.  33 

In  these  circumstances  it  was  the  problem  of  writers, 
at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  to  construct 
the  ideal  vulgar  tongue,  to  discover  its  capacities 
for  noble  utterance,  to  refine  it  for  artistic  usage 
by  the  omission  of  cruder  elements  existing  in  each 
dialect,  and  to  select  from  those  store-houses  of  living 
speech  the  phrases  which  appeared  well  suited  to 
graceful  utterance.  The  desideratum,  to  use  Dante's 
words,  was  "  that  illustrious,  cardinal,  courtly,  curial 
mother- tongue,  proper  to  each  Italian  State,  special  to 
none,  whereby  the  local  idioms  of  every  city  are  to  be 
measured,  weighed,  and  compared." l  Dante  saw  that 
this  selection  of  a  literary  language  from  the  fresh 
shoots  sent  up  by  the  antique  vulgar  Latin  stock  could 
best  be  accomplished  in  a  capital  or  Court,  the  meet- 
ing-place of  learned  people  and  polished  intelligences. 
But  such  a  metropolis  of  culture,  corresponding  to 
Elizabeth's  London  or  the  Paris  of  Louis  XIV., 
was  ever  wanting  in  Italy.  "  We  have  no  Court,"  he 
says:  "  and  yet  the  members  that  should  compose  a 
Court  are  not  absent." 2  He  refers  to  men  of  education 
and  good  manners,  upon  whom,  in  the  absence  of  a 
local  center  of  refinement,  fell  the  duty  of  reforming 
the  vernacular.  The  peculiar  conditions  of  Italy,  as 
he  described  them,  were  destined  to  subsist  through- 
out the  next  two  centuries  and  a  half,  when  men 
of  learning,  taking  Tuscan  as  their  standard,  sought 
by  practice  and  example  to  form  a  national  language. 
The  self-consciousness  of  the  Italians  front  to  front 
with  this  problem,  as  revealed  to  us  in  the  pages 
of  the  De  Eloquio,  and  the  decision  with  which 
i  De  Vulg.  Eloq.  i.  16.  «  Ibid.  I.  18. 


34  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

the  great  authors  of  the  fourteenth  century  fixed  a 
certain  type  of  diction,  accurately  spoken  nowhere, 
though  nearer  to  the  Tuscan  than  to  any  other  idiom, 
may  be  reckoned  among  the  most  interesting  pheno- 
mena in  the  history  of  literature.  Tuscan  predomi- 
nated; but  that  the  masterpieces  of  the  trecento  were 
not  composed  in  any  one  of  the  unadulterated  Tuscan 
dialects  is  clear,  not  merely  from  the  contemporary 
testimony  of  Dante  himself,  but  also  from  the  ob- 
stinate discussions  raised  upon  this  subject  by  Bembc 
at  a  later  period.  A  guiding  and  controlling  principle 
of  taste  determined  the  instinctive  method  of  selec- 
tion whereby  Tuscan  was  adapted  to  the  common 
needs  of  Italy. 

While  treating  of  the  Latin,  the  Lombard  or 
Franco-Italian,  and  the  Sicilian  or  I  talo- Pro  venial 
periods  of  national  development,  I  have  hitherto 
neglected  that  plebeian  literature  which,  although  its 
monuments  have  almost  perished,  must  have  been 
diffused  in  dialects  through  Italy  after  the  opening  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  Written  for  and  by  the  people, 
the  relics  of  this  prose  and  poetry  are  valuable,  not 
merely  for  the  light  they  throw  on  the  formation  of 
language,  but  also  for  their  indications  of  national 
tendencies.  In  the  northern  dialects  we  meet  with 
treatises  of  religious,  ethical  and  gnomic  import,  among 
which  the  Gerusalemme  Celeste  and  Babilonia  Infernale 
of  Fra  Giacomino  of  Verona,  the  Bible  History  of  Pietro 
Bescape  of  Milan,  the  Contention  between  Satan  and 
the  Virgin  of  Bonvesin  da  Riva,  and  two  other 
dialogues  by  the  same  author,  one  between  the  Soul 
and  Body,  the  other  between  a  son  and  his  father  in 


ORIGIN  OF  ITALIAN  PROSE.  35 

hell,  deserve  mention.  To  this  class  again  belongs 
Bonvesin's  Cinquanta  Cortesie  da  Tavola,  a  book  of 
etiquette  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  small  bourgeoisie 
upon  their  entrance  into  social  life. 

It  is  impossible  to  fix  even  an  approximate  date 
for  the  emergence  of  Italian  prose.  Law  documents, 
deeds  of  settlement,  contracts,  and  public  acts,  which 
can  be  referred  with  certainty  to  the  first  half  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  display  a  pressure  of  the  vulgar 
speech  upon  the  formal  Latin  of  official  verbiage.  The 
effort  to  obtain  precision  in  designating  some  particular 
locality  or  some  important  person,  forces  the  scribe  back 
upon  his  common  speech;  and  these  evidences  of 
difficulty  in  wielding  the  Latin  which  had  now  become 
a  dying  language,  prove  that,  long  before  it  was  written, 
Italian  was  spoken.  From  the  year  1231  we  possess 
accounts  of  domestic  expenditure  written  by  one  Matta- 
sala  di  Spinello  dei  Lambertini  in  the  Sienese  dialect 
Then  follow  Lucchese  documents  and  letters  of  Si- 
enese citizens,  which,  though  they  have  no  literary 
value,  show  that  people  who  could  write  had  begun  to  ex- 
press their  thoughts  in  spoken  idiom.  The  first  essays 
in  Italian  composition  for  a  lettered  public  were  trans- 
lations from  works  already  written  by  Italians  in 
langue  doll.  Among  these  a  prominent  place  must  be 
assigned  to  the  version  of  Marco  Polo's  travels,  which 
Rusticiano  of  Pisa  first  published  in  French,  having  pos- 
sibly received  them  in  Venetian  from  the  traveler's  own 
lips.  The  Tesoro  of  Brunetto  Latini  and  Egidio's  D& 
Regimine  Principum  were  Italianized  in  this  way;  while 
numerous  digests  of  Prankish  romances,  including  the 
collection  known  as  Conti  di  antichi  Cavalieri,  appeared 


36  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

to  meet  the  same  popular  demand.  Religious  history 
and  ethics  furnished  another  library  in  the  vernacular. 
The  Dodici  Conti  Morali,  the  Introduzione  cdle  Virtu, 
the  Giardino  delta  Consolazione,  and  the  Libra  di  Cato 
supplied  the  people  with  specimens  from  works  already 
famous.  After  a  like  manner,  books  of  rhetoric  and 
grammar  in  vogue  among  the  medieval  students  were 
popularized  in  abstracts  for  Italian  readers.  We  may  cite 
a  version  of  Orosius,  and  a  Fiore  di  Retorica  based  upon 
the  Ad  Herennium  and  Cicero.  Of  scientific  compila- 
tions, the  Composizione  del  Mondo  by  Ristoro  of  Arezzo, 
embracing  astronomical  and  geographical  information, 
takes  rank  with  the  ethical  and  rhetorical  works  already 
mentioned.  The  note  of  all  these  compositions  is 
that  they  are  professedly  epitomes  of  learning,  already 
possessed  in  more  authentic  sources  by  scholars.  As 
such,  they  prove  that  there  existed  a  class  of  readers 
eager  for  instruction,  to  whom  books  written  in  Latin 
or  in  French  were  not  accessible.  In  a  word,  they 
indicate  the  advent  of  the  modern  tongue,  with  all  its 
exigencies  and  with  all  its  capabilities.  To  deal  with 
the  Chronicles  of  this  period  is  no  easy  matter;  for 
those  which  are  professedly  the  oldest — Matteo  Spi- 
nelli's,  Ricordano  Malespini's,  and  Lu  Ribellament it 
di  Sicilia — have  been  proved  in  some  sense  fabrications. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  from  the  Cento  Novellc 
that  the  more  dramatic  episodes  of  history  and  myth 
were  being  submitted  to  the  same  epitomizing  treat- 
ment. Finally  we  have  to  mention  Guittone  of 
Arezzo's  epistles  as  the  first  serious  attempt  to  treat 
the  vulgar  tongue  rhetorically,  for  a  distinct  literary 
purpose. 


POPULAR  POETRY.  37 

From  the  dry  records  of  incipient  prose  it  is 
refreshing  to  turn  to  another  species  of  popular  poetry ; 
for  poetry  in  the  period  of  origins  is  always  more  adult 
than  prose.  Numerous  fragments  of  political  songs 
have  been  disinterred  from  chronicles,  which  can  be 
referred  to  the  thirteenth  century.  Thus  an  anony- 
mous Genoese  rhymster  celebrated  the  victories  of 
Laiazzo  (1294)  and  Curzola  (1298),  while  Giovanni 
Villani  preserved  six  lines  upon  the  siege  of  Messina 
(I282).1  Verses  in  the  vulgar  tongue  commemorating 
the  apostasy  of  Fra  Elia,  General  of  the  Franciscans, 
in  1240,  and  the  coming  of  the  Florentine  Lamber- 
tesco  dei  Lamberteschi  as  Podesta  to  Reggio  in  1243, 
with  scraps  of  song  relating  to  Pisan  and  Florentine 
history,  may  be  read  in  Carducci's  monumental  work 
upon  this  period  of  literature.2  These  relics,  though 
precious,  are  singularly  scanty;  nor  can  a  Northern 
student  pass  them  by  without  remarking  the  absence  of 
that  semi-historical,  semi-mythical  poetry,  which  is  so 
familiar  to  us  under  the  name  of  Ballad.  More  im- 
portant, because  of  greater  extent,  are  the  laments  and 
amorous  or  comic  poems,  which  can  be  attributed  to 
the  same  century.  The  Lament  of  the  Paduan  woman 
for  her  husband,  who  has  journeyed  to  Holy  Land  in 
the  Crusade  preached  by  Urban  IV.,  may  be  compared 
with  Rinaldo  d'  Aquino's  Farewell.3  Both  of  these 
compositions  were  written  under  Provencal  influence, 
though  the  former  at  least  is  strictly  dialectical  and 
popular.  Passing  to  satirical  poems,  I  may  mention 

'  See  Archivio  Glottologico  Italiano,  vol.  ii.    Villani,  lib.  vii.  cap.  68. 
»  Cantilene  e  Ballate,  Strambotti  e  Madrigali  net  Secoli  xiii.  e  xiv. 
A  cura  di  GiosuS  Carducci  (Pisa,  1871),  pp.  29-32. 
J  Ibid.  pp.  1 8,  22. 


38  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

two  pieces  extracted  from  a  Bolognese  MS.  of  1272 
which  paint  with  vivid  force  of  humor  the  manners 
of  women.1  One  represents  a  drinking-party  of  more 
than  Aristophanic  freedom;  the  other,  a  wrangling 
match  between  two  sisters-in-law  —  the  Cognate. 
Each  displays  facility  of  composition  and  a  literary 
style  already  formed.  They  are  not  without  French 
parallels;  but  the  mode  of  presentation  is  Italian,  and 
the  phrases  have  been  transplanted  without  change 
from  vulgar  dialogue.  Two  romantic  lyrics  extracted 
from  the  same  MS.  prove  that  the  fashionable  style 
of  Provence  had  descended  from  the  nobles  to  the 
common  folk  and  taken  a  new  tincture  of  realism.2 
The  complaint  of  an  unwedded  maiden  to  her  mother 
is  a  not  uncommon  motive  in  this  early  literature, 
turning  either  to  pathos  or  suggesting  a  covert  coarse- 
ness in  the  climax.3  To  the  same  class  may  be  re- 
ferred some  graceful  lyrics  and  dance- songs,  combining 
the  artlessness  of  popular  inspiration  with  reminiscences 
of  French  originals.4  Of  these  the  Nightingale  and 
the  Song  of  Love  in  Dreams  might  be  selected  for 
their  close  sympathy  with  the  rispetti  made  in  Italian 
country  districts  at  the  present  day.  Lastly,  I  have 
to  mention  two  obscene  poems  of  great  popularity, 
II  Nicchio  and  L,'  Ugellino?  These  were  known  to 
Boccaccio,  for  he  refers  to  them  by  name  at  the  close 
of  the  fifth  day  in  the  Decameron.  Each  of  the 
ditties  bears  a  thoroughly  Italian  stamp,  and  anticipates 
by  its  peculiar  style  of  double  entendre  a  whole  depart- 
ment of  national  poetry — the  Florentine  Carnival 

»  Ibid.  pp.  39,  42.  a  Ibid.  pp.  43,  45. 

•  See  ibid.  p.  45,  the  stanza  which  begins,  Matre  tant  d. 
Ibid.  pp.  47-60.  •  Ibid.  pp.  62-66. 


SENSUOUS  MOTIVES.  39 

Songs  and  the  Capitoli  of  the  Roman  academies  being 
distinctly  foreshadowed  in  their  humorous  and  allusive 
treatment  of  a  vulgar  topic.  Hence  we  may  take 
occasion  to  observe  that  those  who  accuse  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici  and  his  contemporaries  of  debasing  popular 
taste  by  the  deliberate  introduction  of  licentious- 
ness into  art,  exceed  the  limits  of  just  censure.  What 
is  called  the  Paganism  of  the  Renaissance,  was  in- 
digenous in  Italy.  We  find  it  inherent  in  vulgar 
literature  before  the  date  of  Boccaccio;  and  if,  with 
the  advance  of  social  luxury,  it  assumed,  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  a  more  objectionable 
prominence,  this  should  not  be  exclusively  ascribed  to 
the  influence  of  humanistic  studies  or  to  the  example 
of  far-sighted  despots.  Indeed,  it  can  be  asserted  that 
the  specific  quality  of  the  popular  Italian  genius — 
its  sensuous  realism,  qualified  with  irony — emerges 
unmistakably  in  five  most  important  relics  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  the  Cognate,  the  Comadri,  the 
Tenzone  of  the  Maiden  and  her  Mother  (Mamma  lo 
temp'  2  venuto),  the  Nicchio>  and  the  Ugellinol  They 
yield  the  common  stuff  of  that  magnificent  art  which 
shall  afterwards  be  developed  into  the  Decameron  and 
the  Novelle,  out  of  which  shall  proceed  the  comedies 
and  Bernesque  lyrics  of  the  Cinque  Cento,  and  which 
is  destined  to  penetrate  the  golden  cantos  of  the 

1  The  practical  and  realistic  common  sense  of  the  Italians,  reject- 
ing chivalrous  and  ecclesiastical  idealism  as  so  much  nonsense,  is  illus- 
trated by  the  occasional  poems  of  two  Florentine  painters — Giotto's  Can- 
rone  on  Poverty,  and  Orcagna's  Sonnet  on  Love.  Orcagna,  in  the  latter, 
criticises  the  conventional- blind  and  winged  Cupid,  and  winds  up  with: 

L'  amore  e  un  trastullo: 
Non  e  composto  di  legno  ne  di  osso; 
E  a  molte  gente  fa  rc\npere  il  dosso. 


40  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Orlando  Furioso.  To  an  unprejudiced  student  ol 
Italian  arts  and  letters  nothing  seems  more  clearly 
proved  than  the  fact  that  a  certain  powerful  objective 
quality — call  it  realism,  call  it  sensuousness — deter- 
mines their  most  genuine  productions,  sinking  to 
grossness,  ascending  to  sublimity,  combining  with 
religious  feeling  in  the  fine  arts,  blending  with  the 
definiteness  of  classic  style,  but  never  absent.  It  is 
this  objectivity,  realism,  sensuousness,  which  consti- 
tutes the  strength  of  the  Italians,  and  assigns  the 
limitations  of  their  faculty. 

In  quite  a  different  region,  but  of  no  less  import- 
ance for  the  future  of  Italian  literature,  must  be 
reckoned  the  religious  hymns,  which,  during  the  thir- 
teenth century,  began  to  be  composed  in  the  ver- 
nacular. The  earliest  known  specimen  is  S.  Francis' 
famous  Cantico  del  Sole,  which,  even  as  it  is  preserved 
to  us,  after  undergoing  the  process  of  modernization, 
retains  the  purity  and  freshness  of  a  bird's  note  in 
spring.  After  S.  Francis,  but  at  the  distance  of  half 
a  century,  followed  Jacopone  da  Todi,  with  his  pas- 
sionate and  dithyrambic  odes,  which  seem  to  vibrate 
tongues  of  fire.  To  this  religious  lyric  the  Flagel- 
lant frenzy  (1260)  and  the  subsequent  *  formation  of 
Companies  of  Laudesi  gave  decisive  impulse.  I  shall 
have  in  a  future  chapter  to  discuss  the  relation  between 
the  Umbrian  Lauds  and  the  origins  of  the  Drama. 
It  is  enough  here  to  notice  the  part  played  in  the 
evolution  of  the  language  by  so  early  a  transition 
from  the  Latin  Hymns  of  the  Church  to  Hymns 
written  in  the  modern  speech  for  private  confraterni- 
ties and  domestic  gatherings, 


POPULAR   AND    COURTLY  POETS.  41 

We  learn  from  this  meager  review  of  ancient 
popular  poetry  that  during  the  thirteenth  century  the 
dialects  of  each  district  had  begun  to  seek  literary 
expression.  There  are  many  indications  that  the  pro- 
ducts of  one  province  speedily  became  the  property  of 
the  rest.  Spontaneous  motives  were  mingled  with 
French  and  Provengal  recollections;  and  already  we 
can  trace  the  unconscious  effort  to  form  a  common 
language  in  the  process  known  as  Toscaneggiamento> 
or  the  translation  of  local  songs  into  Tuscan  idiom.1 
It  would,  therefore,  be  incorrect  to  imagine  either  that 
the  Sicilian  poets  were  blank  imitators  of  Provencal 
models,  or  that  the  Italian  language  started  into 
being  at  Palermo.  What  really  happened  was,  that 
Frederick's  Court  became  the  center  of  a  widespread 
literary  movement.  The  Sicilian  dialect  predomina- 
ting at  Palermo  over  the  rest,  the  poets  of  different 
provinces  who  assembled  round  the  Emperor  were 
subsequently  known  as  Sicilian.  Their  songs,  passing 
upward  through  the  peninsula,  bore  that  name,  even 
when  they  had,  as  at  Florence,  been  converted,  by 
dialectical  modifications,  to  the  use  of  Tuscan  folk.2 
The  aristocratic  tone  of  the  Court  made  Provencal 
literature  fashionable;  and  a  refined  diction,  softening 
the  crudities  of  more  than  one  competing  dialect,  was 
formed  to  express  the  subtleties  of  the  Provencal  style. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  poets  of  this  Court 

1  See  Carducci,  op.  cit.  pp.  52-60,  for  early  examples  ot  Tuscanized 
Sicilian  poems  of  the  people. 

1  The  Tuscanized  Sicilian  poems  in  Carducci's  collection  referred  to 
above,  are  extracted  from  a  Florentine  MS.  called  Napolitana,  and  a 
Tenzone  between  man  and  woman  (ib.  p.  52),  which  has  clearly  under- 
gone  a  like  process,  is  called  Ciciliana. 


43  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

were  men  of  learned  education — judges,  notaries, 
officials.  Dante  makes  dottori  nearly  synonymous 
with  trovatori.  At  the  same  time,  one  of  the  earliest 
specimens  of  Sicilian  poetry,  Ciullo  d'Alcamo's  Tenzone, 
is  popular,  free  from  Provencal  affectation,  inclining  to 
comedy  in  some  of  its  marked  motives  and  to  coarse- 
ness at  its  close.  This  proves  that  in  the  island,  sick1 
by  side  with  "  courtly  makers  "  and  dottori,  there  flour 
ished  an  original  and  vulgar  manner  of  poetry. 

The  process  of  Tuscanization  referred  to  in  the 
preceding  paragraph  is  too  important  in  its  bearings 
on  the  problems  of  Italian  language  and  literature,  to 
be  passed  over  without  further  discussion.  Nearly  all 
the  poetry  of  the  Sicilian  epoch  has  been  transmitted 
to  us  in  Florentine  MSS.,  after  undergoing  Toscaneggia- 
mento.  We  possess  but  a  few  stanzas  in  a  pure  condi- 
tion. There  is,  therefore,  reason  to  believe  that  when 
Dante  treated  of  the  courtly  Sicilian  poets  in  his  essay 
De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  he  knew  their  writings  in  a  form 
already  Tuscanized.1  In  commending  the  curial  and 
illustrious  vernacular,  as  something  distinct  from  the 
dialects,  he  was  in  truth  praising  the  dialect  of  his 
own  province,  refined  by  the  practice  of  polite  versi- 
fiers. At  the  date  of  the  composition  of  that  essay, 
the  Suabian  House  had  been  extinguished ;  the  literary 
society  of  the  south  was  broken  up ;  and  to  Florence 
had  already  fallen  the  heritage  of  art.  What  is  even 
more  remarkable,  the  Bolognese  poets,  who  preceded 
Dante  and  his  peers  by  one  generation,  had  abandoned 

•  See  Francesco  d'Ovidio,  Sul  Trattato  De  Vulgari  Eloquentia.  It 
is  reprinted  in  his  volume  of  Saggi  Critici,  Napoli,  1879.  The  subject  is 
fully  discussed  from  a  point  of  view  at  variance  with  my  text  by  Adolf 
Gaspary,  Die  Sicilianisckt  Dichterschvle,  Berlin,  1878. 


TUSCANIZATION.  43 

their  own  dialect  in  favor  of  the  purified  Tuscan. 
Consequently  the  new  Italian  literature  was  already 
Tuscan  either  by  origin,  or  by  adoption,  or  by  a  pro- 
cess of  transformation,  before  the  Florentines  assumed 
the  dictatorship  of  letters.  It  seems  paradoxical  to 
hint  that  Dante  should  not  have  perceived  what  has 
been  here  stated  as  more  than  a  mere  possibility. 
How  came  it  that  he  included  Florentine  among  the 
peccant  idioms,  and  maintained  that  the  true  literary 
speech  was  still  to  seek?  These  doubts  may  in  part 
at  least  be  removed,  when  we  remember  the  peculiar 
conditions  under  which  the  courtly  poetry  he  praised 
had  been  produced;  and  the  indirect  channels  by 
which  it  had  reached  him.  In  the  first  place,  we  have 
seen  that  it  was  composed  in  avowed  imitation  of  Pro- 
vengal  models,  by  men  of  taste  and  learning  drawn 
from  several  provinces.  They  culled,  for  literary  pur- 
poses, a  vocabulary  of  colorless  and  neutral  words, 
which  clothed  the  same  conventional  ideas  with  elegant 
and  artificial  monotony.  When  these  compositions 
underwent  the  further  process  of  Tuscanization  (which 
was  easy,  owing  to  certain  dialectical  affinities  between 
Sicilian  and  Tuscan),  they  lost  to  a  large  extent  what 
still  remained  to  them  of  local  character,  without  ac- 
quiring the  true  stamp  of  Florentine.  Even  a  con- 
temporary could  not  have  recognized  in  the  verse  of 
Jacopo  da  Lentino,  thus  treated,  either  a  genuine 
Sicilian  or  a  genuine  Tuscan  flavor.  His  language 
presented  the  appearance  of  being,  as  indeed  it  was, 
different  from  both  idioms.  The  artifice  of  style 
made  it  pass  for  superior;  and,  in  purely  literary 
quality,  it  was  in  truth  superior  to  the  products  of 


44  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

plebeian  inspiration.  We  may  prefer  the  racy  stanzas 
of  the  Cognate  to  those  frigid  and  exhausted  euphu- 
isms. But  the  critical  taste  of  so  great  a  master  as 
even  Dante  was  not  tuned  to  any  such  preference. 
Though  he  recognized  the  defects  of  the  Sicilian  poets, 
as  is  manifest  from  his  dialogue  with  Guido  in  the 
Purgatory,  he  gave  them  all  credit  for  elevating  verse 
above  the  vulgar  level.  Their  insipid  diction  seemed 
to  him  the  first  germ  of  a  noble  lingua  aulica.  Its 
colorlessness  and  strangeness  hid  the  fact  that  it  had 
already,  at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  assumed 
the  Tuscan  habit,  and  that  from  the  well-springs  of 
Tuscan  idiom  the  Italian  of  the  future  would  have  to 
draw  its  aliment. 

The  downfall  of  the  Hohenstauffens  and  the  dis- 
persion of  their  Court-poets  proved  a  circumstance  of 
decisive  benefit  to  Italian  literature,  by  removing  it 
from  a  false  atmosphere  into  conditions  where  it  freely 
flourished  and  expanded  its  originality.  Feudalism 
formed  no  vital  part  of  the  Italian  social  system,  and 
chivalry  had  never  been  more  than  an  exotic,  culti- 
vated in  the  hotbed  of  the  aristocracy.  The  impulse 
given  to  poetry  in  the  south,  under  influences  in  no 
true  sense  of  the  phrase  national — a  Norman-German 
dynasty  attempting  to  acclimatize  Provencal  forms 
upon  Italian  soil — could  hardly  have  produced  a 
vigorous  type  of  literature.  It  is  from  the  people,  in 
centers  of  popular  activity,  or  where  the  spirit  of  the 
people  finds  full  play  in  representative  society,  that 
characteristic  art  must  be  developed.  When  we  say 
this,  we  think  inevitably  of  Periclean  Athens,  Eliza- 
beth's London,  the  Paris  of  Louis  XIV.  If  the 


OPENING    OF  TUSCAN  PERIOD.  45 

chances  of  our  drama  had  been  confined  to  Court- 
patronage  or  Sidney's  Areopagus,  instead  of  being 
extended  to  the  nation  by  free  competition  in  the 
wooden  theaters  where  Marlowe  and  Shakspere 
appealed  to  popular  taste,  there  is  little  doubt  but 
that  England  would  only  have  boasted  of  a  mediocre 
and  academical  stage.  When  Italian  poetry  deserted 
Palermo  for  the  banks  of  the  Arno,  it  exchanged  the 
Court  for  the  people;  the  subtleties  of  decadent 
chivalry  for  the  genuine  impulses  of  a  free  community; 
the  pettiness  of  culture  for  the  humanities  of  a  public 
conscious  of  high  destinies  and  educated  in  a  mascu- 
line political  arena.  Here  the  grand  qualities  of  the 
Italian  genius  found  an  open  field.  Literature,  aban- 
doning imitative  elegance,  expressed  the  feelings, 
thoughts,  and  aspirations  of  a  breed  second  to  none  in 
Europe  for  acuteness  of  intellect,  intensity  of  emotion, 
and  greatness  of  purpose.  At  Palermo  the  princes 
and  their  courtiers  had  been  reciprocally  auditors 
and  poets.  At  Florence  the  people  listened;  and 
the  poets,  sprung  from  them,  were  speakers.  Ex- 
cept at  Athens  in  the  golden  age  of  Hellas,  no 
populace  has  equaled  that  of  Florence  both  for  the 
production  of  original  genius,  and  also  for  the  sen- 
sitiveness to  beauty,  diffused  throughout  all  classes, 
which  brings  the  artist  and  his  audience  into  right 
accord. 

Two  stages  in  the  transition  from  Sicily  to  Florence 
need  to  be  described.  Guittone  of  Arezzo  (1230- 
1294)  strikes  the  historian  of  literature  as  the  man 
who  first  attempted  to  nationalize  the  polished  poetry 
of  the  Sicilian  Court,  and  to  strip  the  new  style  of  its 


46  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

feudal  pedantry.1  It  was  his  aim,  apparently,  dismis 
sing  chivalrous  conventions,  to  use  the  diction  and  the 
forms  of  literary  art  in  an  immediate  appeal  to  the 
Italian  people.  He  wrote,  however,  roughly.  Though 
he  practiced  vernacular  prose,  and  assumed  in  verse 
the  declamatory  tone  which  Petrarch  afterwards  em- 
ployed with  such  effect  in  his  addresses  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  Italy,  yet  Dante  could  speak  of  him  with 
cold  contempt2;  nor  can  we  claim  for  him  a  higher 
place  than  that  of  precursor.  He  attempted  more 
than  he  was  able  to  fulfill.  But  his  attempt,  when 
judged  by  the  conditions  of  his  epoch,  deserves  to  rank 
among  achievements. 

With  a  poet  of  Bologna  the  case  is  different 
Placed  midway  between  Lombardy  and  Tuscany, 
Bologna  shared  the  instincts  of  the  two  noblest  Italian 
populations — the  Communes  who  wrested  liberty  from 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  and  the  Communes  who  were 
to  give  arts  and  letters  to  the  nation.  Bologna, 
moreover,  was  proud  of  her  legal  university,  and  had 
already  won  her  title  of  "  the  learned."  Here  Guido 
Guinicelli  solved  the  problem  of  rendering  the  Sicil- 
ian style  at  once  national  in  spirit  and  elevated  in 
style.3  He  did  so  by  making  it  scientific.  Receiving 
from  his  Italo-ProvenQal  predecessors  the  material  of 
chivalrous  love,  and  obeying  the  genius  of  his  native 
city,  Guido  rhymed  of  love  no  longer  as  a  fashion- 
able pastime,  but  as  the  medium  of  philosophic  truth. 
Learning  was  the  mother  of  the  national  Italian 

'  Rime  di  Fra  Guittone  d'Arezzo,  Firenze,  Morandi,  1828,  2  vols. 
*  De  Vulg.  Eloq.  ii.  6;  ii.  i;  i.  13,  and  Purg.  xxvi.  124. 
1  His  poems  will  be  found  in  the  collections  above  mentioned,  p.  26 
note. 


GU1DO    GUINICELU.  47 

poetry.  From  Guido  started  a  school  of  transcen- 
dental singers,  who  used  the  ancient  form  and  subject- 
matter  of  exotic  poetry  for  the  utterance  of  metaphys- 
ical thought.  The  Italians,  born,  as  it  were,  old,  were 
destined  thus  to  pass  from  imitation,  through  specula- 
tion, to  the  final  freedom  of  their  sensuous  art.  Of 
this  new  lyric  style — logical,  allegorical,  mystical — the 
first  masterpiece  was  Guide's  Canzone  of  the  Gentle 
Heart.  The  code  was  afterwards  formulated  in 
Dan£e!s_Ca0zrzfo.  The  life  it  covered  and  interpreted 
was  painteH  m  the  Vita  Nuova.  Its  apocalypse 
was  the  Paradiso.  If  Guido  Guinicelli  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  writing  from  the  heart,  if  he  was  more  of 
an  analyst  than  a  lover,  it  is  yet  clear  that  the 
euphuisms  of  the  Italo  -  Provencal  imitators  have 
yielded  in  his  verse  to  genuine  emotion,  while,  speak- 
ing technically,  the  complex  structure  of  the  true 
Italian  Canzone  now  appears  in  all  its  harmony  of 
grace  and  grandeur.  Guide's  language  is  Tuscan;  not 
the  Tuscan  of  the  people,  but  the  Tuscan  of  the 
Toscaneggiamenti.  Herein,  again,  we  note  the  im- 
portance of  this  poet  in  the  history  of  literature. 
Working  outside  Florence,  but  obeying  Florentine 
precedent,  he  stamps  Italian  with  a  Tuscan  seal,  and 
helps  to  conceal  from  Tuscans  themselves  the  high 
destinies  of  their  idiom. 

Dante  puts  us  at  the  right  point  of  view  for 
estimating  Guide's  service.  Though  he  recognized 
the  Sicilians  as  the  first  masters  of  poetic  style  in 
Italy,  Dante  saluted  the  poet  of  Bologna  as  his 
father l : 

'  Purg.  xxvi. 


40  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Quando  i'  udi*  nomar  s6  stesso  il  padre 
Mio,  e  degli  altri  miei  miglior,  che  mai 
Rime  d'  amor  usar  dolci  e  leggiadre. 

On  the  authority  of  this  sentence  we  hail  in  Guido 
the  founder  of  the  new  and  specifically  national  litera- 
ture of  the  Italians.  If  not  the  master,  he  was  the 
prophet  of  that  dolce  stil  nuovo,  which  freed  them 
from  dependence  on  foreign  traditions,  and  led,  by 
transmutation,  to  the  miracles  of  their  Renaissance 
art.  He  divined  that  sincere  source  of  inspiration, 
whereof  Dante  speaks * : 

Io  mi  son  un  che  quando 
Amore  spira,  noto;  ed  a  quel  modo 
Ch*  ei  detta  dentro,  vo  significando. 

The  happy  instinct  which  led  him  to  use  Tuscan, 
has  secured  his  place  upon  the  roll  of  poets  who 
may  still  be  read  with  pleasure.  And  of  this,  too, 
Dante  prophesied 2 : 

Li  dolci  detti  vostri, 
Che,  quanto  durerd.  1*  uso  moderno, 
Faranno  cari  ancora  i  loro  inchiostri. 

Bologna  could  boast  of  many  minor  bards — of  the 
excellent  Onesto,  of  Fabrizio  and  Ghislieri,  qui  doctor es 
fuerunt  illustres  et  vulgarium  discretione  repleti?  Her 
erudition  was  further  illustrated  by  the  work  of  one 
Guidotto,  who  composed  a  treatise  on  the  new  ver- 
nacular, which  he  dedicated  to  King  Manfred.  Thus 
both  by  example  and  precept,  by  the  testimony  of 
Dante  and  the  fair  fame  of  her  own  writers,  this  city 
makes  for  us  a  link  between  Sicilian  and  Tuscan 
literature. 

Manfred   was    slain    at    Benevento    in    1266,    anc1 

1  Purg.  xxiv.  *  Purg.  «vu  »  De  Vulg.  Eloq.  i.  15 


KING   ENZO'S  ENVOY  TO   TUSCANY.  49 

with  him  expired  the  prospects  of  Sicilian  poetry. 
Dante,  destined  to  inaugurate  the  great  age,  was  born 
at  Florence  in  1265.  Guido  Guinicelli  died  in  1277, 
when  Dante  had  completed  his  twelfth  yearT  From 
1249  until  1271,  during  the  whole  childhood  of  Dante, 
Enzo,  King  of  Sardinia,  Manfred's  half-brother  and 
Frederick  II's.  son,  remained  a  prisoner  in  the  public 
palace  of  Bologna.  In  one  of  those  years  of  prepara- 
tion and  transition,  while  the  learned  stanzas  of  Guido 
Guinicelli  were  preluding  the  "  new  sweet  style "  of 
Tuscany,  this  yellow-haired  scion  of  the  Suabian 
princes,  the  progenitor  of  the  Bentivogli,  sent  a  song 
forth  from  his  dungeon's  loggie  to  greet  the  provinces 
of  Italy: — 

Va,  Canzonetta  mia, 
E  saluta  Messere, 
Dilli  lo  mal  ch'  i'  aggio. 
Quella  che  m'  ha  in  balia 
Si  distretto  mi  tene, 
Ch'  eo  viver  non  poraggio. 
Salutami  Toscana, 
Quella  ched  e  sovrana, 
In  cui  regna  tutta  cortesia; 
E  vanne  in  Puglia  piana, 
La  magna  Capitana, 
La  dove  e  lo  mio  core  notte  e  dia. 

These  lines  sound  a  farewell  to  the  old  age  and  a 
salutation  to  the  new.  Enzo's  heart  is  in  the  lowlands 
of  Apulia  and  the  great  Capitanate,  where  his  father 
built  castles  and  fought  mighty  wars.  He  belongs,  like 
his  verses,  like  his  race,  like  the  chivalrous  sentiments 
he  had  imbibed  in  youth,  to  the  past ;  and  now  he  is 
dreaming  life  away,  a  captive  with  the  burghers  of 
Bologna.  Yet  it  is  Tuscany  for  which  he  reserves  the 


5<>  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

epithet  of  Sovereign  —  Tuscany  where  all  courtesy 
holds  sway.  The  situation  is  pathetic.  The  poem  is 
a  prophecy. 

Raimond  of  Tours,  one  of  the  earlier  French 
minnesingers,  bade  his  friend  seek  hospitality  "  in  the 
noble  city  of  the  Florentines,  named  Florence;  for 
it  is  there  that  joy  and  song  and  love  are  perfected 
with  beauty  crowned."1  The  delicate  living  and  grace- 
ful pastimes  of  Valdarno  were  famous  throughout 
Europe.  In  the  old  French  romance  of  "  Cleomade's," 
for  example,  we  read  a  rhymed  description  of  the 
games  and  banquets  with  which  Florence  welcomed 
May  and  June2: — 

Pour  May  et  Gayn  honorer; 
Le  May  pour  sa  joliviW, 
Et  le  Gayn  pour  la  plants. 

Villani,  writing  of  the  year  1283,  when  the  Guelis 
had  triumphed  and  the  nobles  had  been  quelled,  speaks 
thus  of  those  festivities3: — "In  this  happy  and  fair 
state  of  ease  and  peaceful  quiet  so  wealth-giving  to 
merchants  and  artificers,  and  specially  to  the  Guelfs, 
who  ruled  the  land,  there  was  formed  in  the  quarter  of 
S,  Felicita  beyond  the  Arno,  where  the  family  De' 
Rossi  took  the  lead,  together  with  their  neighborhood, 
a  company  or  band  of  one  thousand  men  and  upwards, 
all  attired  in  white,  with  a  Lord  named  the  Lord  of 
Love.  This  band  had  no  other  purpose  than  to  pass 
the  time  in  games  and  solace,  and  in  dances  of  ladies, 
knights  and  other  people  of  the  city,  roaming  the  town 
with  trumpets  and  divers  instruments  of  music,  in  joy 

»  Fauriel,  Dante  et  les  origines,  etc.  (Paris,  1854),  i.  269. 

*  D'Ancona,  La  Poesia  Popolare  Italiana  (Livorno  1878),  p.  36,  note. 

«  Giov.  Vill.  vii.  89. 


FLORENTINE    PASTIMES.  51 

and  gladness,  and  abiding  together  in  banquets  at  mid- 
day and  eventide."  From  another  chronicle  it  appears 
that  this  company  was  called  the  Brigata  bianco,  or 
Brigata  amoroso..1  "There,"  says  a  rhymer  who  had 
seen  the  sports,  "  might  one  behold  the  rich  attire  of 
silk  and  gold,  of  samite,  white  and  blue  and  violet, 
with  fair  velvets;  and  trappings  of  all  colors  I  beheld 
that  day.  The  young  men  mid  the  women  went  with 
gaze  fixed  upon  those  eyes  angelical,  that  turn  the  mid- 
night into  noon.  Over  their  blonde  tresses  the 
maidens  wore  gems  and  precious  garlands;  lilies, 
violets  and  roses  were  their  charming  faces.  You 
would  not  have  said:  '  Yon  are  mortal  beings.'  They 
rather  seemed  a  thousand  paradises."2 

The  amusements  lasted  two  months,  from  May  i 
until  the  end  of  the  midsummer  feast  of  S.  John,  patron 
of  Florence.  Later  on,  we  read  of  two  companies, 
the  one  dressed  in  yellow,  the  other  in  white,  each  led 
by  their  King,  who  filled  the  city  with  the  sound  of 
music,  and  wore  garlands  on  their  heads,  and  spent 
their  time  in  dances  and  banquets.3 

Again,  when  the  nobles,  after  the  battle  of  Cam- 
paldino,  had  been  finally  suppressed,  Villani  once 
more  returns  to  the  subject  of  these  companies,  de- 
scribing the  booths  of  wood  adorned  with  silken  cur- 
tains, which  were  ranged  along  the  streets  and  squares, 
for  the  accommodation  of  guests.4  It  will  be  observed 
that  Villani  connects  the  gladness  of  this  season 
with  the  successive  triumphs  of  the  Guelf  party  and 
the  suppression  of  the  nobles  by  the  Popolo.  Not 

1  Stefani,  quoted  by  D'Ancona,  op.  cit.  p.  36.        »  Ibid.  p.  37,  note. 
8  Giov.  Vill.  x.  216.  •»  Giov.  Vill.  vii.  132 


52  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

only  was  Florence  freed  from  grave  anxieties  and  heavy 
expenses,  caused  by  the  intramural  quarrels  between 
Counts  and  Burghers,  but  the  city  felt  the  advent  of 
her  own  prosperity,  the  realization  of  her  true  type,  in 
their  victorious  close.  Then  the  new  noble  class,  the 
popolani grassi,  assumed  the  gentle  manners  of  chivalry, 
accommodating  its  customs  to  their  own  rich  jovial  ideal. 
Feudalism  was  extinguished;  but  society  retained  such 
portions  of  feudal  customs  as  shed  beauty  upon  common 
life.  Tranquillity  succeeded  to  strife,  and  the  medieval 
city  presented  a  spectacle  similar  to  that  which  an  old 
Greek  lyrist  has  described  among  the  gifts  of  Peace: 

To  mortal  men  Peace  giveth  these  good  things: 

Wealth,  and  the  flowers  of  honey-throated  song; 
The  flame  that  springs 
On  carven  altars  from  fat  sheep  and  kine, 

Slain  to  the  gods  in  heaven;  and,  all  day  long, 
Games  for  glad  youths,  and  flutes,  and  wreaths,  and  circling  wine. 
Then  in  the  steely  shield  swart  spiders  weave 

Their  web  and  dusky  woof: 
Rust  to  the  pointed  spear  and  sword  doth  cleave; 
The  brazen  trump  sounds  no  alarms; 

Nor  is  sleep  harried  from  our  eyes  aloot, 
But  with  sweet  rest  my  bosom  warms: 
The  streets  are  thronged  with  beauteous  men  and  young, 
N    And  hymns  in  praise  of  Love  like  flames  to  heaven  are  flung. 

Goro  di  Stagio  Dati,  writing  at  the  end  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  has  preserved  for  us  an  animated  pic- 
ture of  Florence  in  May.1  "When  the  season  of 
spring  appears  to  gladden  all  the  world,  every  man 
bethinks  him  how  to  make  fair  the  day  of  S.  John, 
which  follows  at  midsummer,  and  there  is  none  but 
provides  himself  betimes  with  clothes  and  ornaments 

i  Storia  di  Ftrenze  di  Goro  Dati  (Firenze,  1735),  p.  84. 


FLORENTINE    PAGEAKTTS.  53 

and  jewels.  Marriages  and  other  joyous  occasions  are 
deferred  until  that  time,  to  do  the  festival  honor;  and 
two  months  before  the  date,  they  begin  to  furnish 
forth  the  decorations  of  the  races — dresses  of  varlets, 
banners,  clarions,  draperies,  and  candles,  and  whatso- 
ever other  offerings  should  be  made.  The  whole  city 
is  in  a  bustle  for  the  preparation  of  the  Festa;  and  the 
hearts  of  young  men  and  women,  who  take  part 
therein,  are  set  on  naught  but  dancing,  playing,  sing- 
ing, banqueting,  jousting,  and  other  fair  amusements 
as  though  naught  else  were  to  be  done  in  those  weeks 
before  the  coming  of  S.  John's  Eve."  The  minute 
account  of  the  ceremonies  observed  on  S.  John's  Day 
which  follows,  need  not  be  transcribed.  Yet  it  may 
be  well  to  call  attention  to  a  quattrocento  picture  in 
the  Florentine  Academy,  which  illustrates  the  customs 
of  that  festival.  It  is  a  long  panel  representing  the 
marriage  of  an  Adimari  with  a  daughter  of  the  Rica- 
soli.  The  Baptistery  appears  in  the  background;  and 
on  the  piazza  are  ladies  and  young  men,  clad  in 
damask  and  rich  stuffs,  with  jewels  and  fantastic  head- 
dresses, joining  hands  as  though  in  act  of  dancing. 
Under  the  Loggia  del  Bigallo  sit  the  trumpeters  of  the 
Signory,  blowing  clarions  adorned  with  pennons.  The 
lily  of  Florence  is  on  these  trappings.  Serving  men 
carry  vases  and  basins  toward  the  Adimari  palace,  in 
preparation  for  the  wedding  feast.  A  large  portion 
of  the  square  is  covered  in  with  a  white  and  red 
awning. 

If  the  chroniclers  and  painters  enable  us  to  form 
some  conception  of  Florentine  festivity,  we  are  intro- 
duced to  the  persons  and  pastimes  of  these  jovial 


54  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

companies  by  the  poet  Folgore  da  San  Gemignano.1 
Two  sets  of  his  Sonnets  have  been  preserved,  the 
one  upon  the  Months,  addressed  to  the  leader  of  a 
noble  Sienese  company;  the  other  on  the  Days,  to  a 
member  of  a  similar  Florentine  society.  If  we  are 
right  in  reckoning  Folgore  among  the  poets  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  the  facility  and  raciness  of  his 
style,  its  disengagement  from  Provengalizing  pedantry, 
and  the  irony  of  his  luxurious  hedonism,  prove  to 
what  extent  the  Tuscans  had  already  left  the  middle 
age  behind  them.2  Folgore,  in  spite  of  his  spring 
fragrance  and  auroral  freshness,  anticipates  the  spirit  of 
the  Renaissance.  He  is  a  thirteenth-century  Boccaccio, 
without  Boccaccio's  enthusiasm  for  humane  studies. 
Ideal  love,  asceticism,  religion,  the  virtues  of  the 
Christian  and  the  knight,  are  not  for  him.  His  soul  is 
set  on  the  enjoyment  of  the  hour.  But  this  material- 

1  The  date  commonly  assigned  to  Folgore  is  1260,  and  the  Niccolo 
he  addresses  in  his  series  on  the  Months  has  been  identified  with  that 

Nicolo,  che  la  costuma  ricca 
Del  garofano  prima  discoperse, 

so  ungently  handled  by  Dante  in  the  Inferno,  Canto  xxix.  I  am  aware 
that  grave  doubts,  based  upon  historical  allusions  in  Folgore 's  miscel- 
laneous sonnets,  have  been  raised  as  to  whether  we  can  assign  so  early  a 
date  to  Folgore,  and  whether  his  Brigata  was  really  the  brigata  goderec- 
;ia,  spendereccia,  of  Siena  alluded  to  by  Dante.  See  Bartoli,  Storia  della 
Letter  afar  a  Italiana,  vol.  ii.  cap.  n,  for  a  discussion  of  these  points 
See  also  Giulio  Navone's  edition  of  Folgore 's  and  Gene's  Rime,  Bologna 
Romagnoli,  1880.  This  editor  argues  forcibly  for  a  later  date — not  ear- 
lier at  all  events  than  from  1300  to  1320.  But,  whether  we  choose  th< 
earlier  date  1260  or  the  later  1315,  Folgore  may  legitimately  be  use< 
for  my  present  purpose  of  illustration. 

«  This  is  equally  true  of  Cene  dalla  Chitarra's  satirical  parodies  of  th 
Months,  in  which,  using  the  same  rhymes  as  Folgore,  he  turns  each  o 
his  motives  to  ridicule.  Cene  was  a  poet  of  Arezzo.  His  series  an- 
Folgore's  will  both  be  found  in  the  Poeti  del  Primo  Secolo,  vol.  ii.,  an 
in  Navone's  edition  cited  above. 


FOLGORE   DA    SAN   GEMIGNANO.  55 

ism  is  presented  in  a  form  of  art  so  temperate,  with 
colors  so  refined  and  outlines  so  delicately  drawn,  that 
there  is  nothing  repulsive  in  it.  His  selfishness  and 
sensuality  are  related  to  Aretino's  as  the  miniatures 
of  a  missal  to  Giulio  Romano's  Modes  of  Venus.1 

In  his  sonnets  on  the  Months,  Folgore  addresses 
the  Brigata  as  "  valiant  and  courteous  above  Lancelot, 
ready,  if  need  were,  with  lance  in  rest,  to  spur  along 
the  lists  of  Camelot."  In  January  he  gives  them  good 
fires  and  warm  chambers,  silken  coverlids  for  their 
beds,  and  fur  cloaks,  and  sometimes  in  the  day  lo 
sally  forth  and  snow-ball  girls  upon  the  square: 

Uscir  di  fora  alcuna  volta  il  giorno, 
Gittando  della  neve  bella  e  bianca 
A  le  donzelle,  che  staran  dattorno. 

February  brings  the  pleasures  of  the  chase.  March 
is  good  for  fishing,  with  merry  friends  at  night,  and 
never  a  friar  to  be  seen: 

Lasciate  predicar  i  Frati  pazzi, 

Ch'  hanno  troppe  bugie  e  poco  vero. 

•  These  remarks  have  to  be  qualified  by  reference  to  an  unfinished 
set  of  five  sonnets  (Navone's  edition,  pp.  45-49),  which  are  composed  in 
a  somewhat  different  key.  They  describe  the  arming  of  a  young  knight, 
and  his  reception  by  Valor,  Humility,  Discretion,  and  Gladness.  Yet 
the  knight,  so  armed  and  accepted,  is  no  Galahad,  far  less  the  grim 
horseman  of  Diirer's  allegory.  Like  the  members  of  the  brigata  goder- 
eccia,  he  is  rather  a  Gawain  or  Astolfo,  all  love,  fine  clothes,  and  court- 
ship. Each  of  these  five  sonnets  is  a  precious  little  miniature  of  Italian 
carpet-chivalry.  The  quaintest  is  the  second,  which  begins: 
Ecco  prodezza  che  tosto  lo  spoglia, 

E  dice:  amico  e"  convien  che  tu  mudi, 
Per  cib  ch'  i'  vo'  veder  li  uomini  nudi, 
E  vo'  che  sappi  non  abbo  altra  voglia. 

This  exordium  makes  one  regret  that  the  painter  of  the  young  knight  In 
our  National  Gallery  (Giorgione  ?)  had  not  essayed  a  companion  picture. 
Valor  disrobing  him  and  taking  him  into  her  arms  and  crying  Quests 
(ami  m'  at  offerte  would  have  made  a  fine  pictorial  allegory. 


56  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

In  April  the  "gentle  country  all  abloom  with  fair 
fresh  grass"  invites  the  young  men  forth.  Ladies 
shall  go  with  them,  to  ride,  display  French  dresses, 
dance  Provencal  figures,  or  touch  new  instruments 
from  Germany,  or  roam  through  spacious  parks. 
May  brings  in  tournaments  and  showers  of  blossoms 
— garlands  and  oranges  flung  from  balcony  and  win- 
dow— girls  and  youths  saluting  with  kisses  on  cheeks 
and  lips: 

n.  pulzellette,  giovene,  e  garzoni 
Basciarsi  nella  bocca  e  nelle  guance; 
D'  amore  e  di  goder  vi  si  ragioni. 

In  June  the  company  of  youths  and  maidens  quit 
the  city  for  the  villa,  passing  their  time  in  shady  gar- 
dens, where  the  fountains  flow  and  freshen  the  fine 
grass,  and  all  the  folk  shall  be  love's  servants.  July 
finds  them  in  town  again,  avoiding  the  sun's  heat  and 
wearing  silken  raiment  in  cool  chambers  where  they 
feast.  In  August  they  are  off  to  the  hills,  riding  at 
morn  and  eve  from  castle  to  castle,  through  upland 
valleys  where  streams  flow.  September  is  the  month 
of  hawking;  October  of  fowling  and  midnight  balls. 
With  November  and  December  winter  comes  again, 
and  brings  the  fireside  pleasures  of  the  town.  On  the 
whole,  there  is  too  much  said  of  eating  and  drinking 
in  these  sonnets;  and  the  series  concludes  with  a  piece 
of  inhumane  advice: 

E  beffe  far  dei  tristi  cattivelli, 
E  miseri  cattivi  sciagurati 
Avari:  non  vogliate  usar  con  elH. 

The  sonnets  on  the  Days  breathe  the  same  quaint 

medieval   hedonism.1     Monday   is   the   day   of  songs 

1  If  I  were  writing  the  history  of  early  Tuscan  poetry,  I  should  wish 


HIS   JOYOUS    COMPANIES.  57 

and  love;  our  young  man  must  be  up  betimes,  to  make 
his  mistress  happy: 

Levati  su,  donzello,  e  non  dor  mi  re; 
Che  1'  amoroso  giorno  ti  conforta, 
E  vuol  che  vadi  tua  donna  a  fruire. 

Tuesday  is  the  day  of  battles  and  pitched  fields;  but 
these  are  described  in  mock-heroics,  which  show  what 
the  poet  really  felt  about  the  pleasure  of  them.  Wed- 
nesday is  the  day  of  banquets,  when  ladies  and 
girls  are  waited  on  by  young  men  wearing  amorous 
wreaths: 

E  donzelletti  gioveni  garzoni 
Servir,  portando  amorose  ghirlande. 

Thursday  is  the  day  of  jousts  and  tourneys;  Fri- 
day of  hounds  and  horses;  Saturday,  of  hawks  and 
fowling-nets;  Sunday,  of  "  dances  and  feats  of  arms  in 
Florence": 

Danzar  donzelli,  armeggiar  cavalieri, 
Cercar  Fiorenza  per  ogni  contrada, 
Per  piazze,  per  giardini,  e  per  verzieri. 

Such  then   was    the  joyous    living,   painted   with 
colors  of  the  fancy  by  a  Tuscan  poet,  and  realized  in 

here  to  compare  the  rarely  beautiful  poem  of  Lapo  Gianni,  Amor  eo  chero, 
with  Folgore,  and  the  masterly  sonnets  of  Cecco  Angiolieri  of  Siena,  espe- 
cially the  one  beginning  S'  io  fossi fuoco,  with  Cene  dalla  Chitarra,  in 
order  to  prove  the  fullness  of  sensuous  and  satirical  inspiration  in  the 
age  preceding  Dante.  Lapo  wishes  he  had  the  beauty  of  Absalom,  the 
strength  of  Samson;  that  the  Arno  would  run  balm  for  him,  her  walls 
be  turned  to  silver  and  her  paving-stones  to  crystal;  that  he  might  abide 
in  eternal  summer  gardens  among  thousands  of  the  loveliest  women,  lis- 
tening to  the  songs  of  birds  and  instruments  of  music.  The  voluptuous- 
ness of  Folgore  is  here  heightened  to  ecstasy.  Cecco  desires  to  be  fire, 
wind,  sea,  God,  that  he  might  ruin  the  world;  the  emperor,  that  he  might 
decapitate  its  population;  death,  that  he  might  seek  out  his  father  and 
mother;  life,  that  he  might  fly  from  both;  being  Cecco,  he  would  fain 
take  all  fair  women,  and  leave  the  foul  to  his  neighbors.  The  spue  ot 
Cene  is  deepened  to  insanity. 


58  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Florence  at  the  close  of  that  eventful  century  which 
placed  the  city  under  Guelf  rule,  in  the  plenitude  of 
peace,  equality,  and  wealth  by  sea  and  land.  Distinc- 
tions of  class  had  been  obliterated.  The  whole  popu- 
lation enjoyed  equal  rights  and  equal  laws.  No  man 
was  idle;  and  though  the  simplicity  of  the  past,  praised 
by  Dante  and  Villani,  was  yielding  to  luxury,  still  the 
pleasure-seekers  were  controlled  by  that  fine  taste 
which  made  the  Florentines  a  race  of  artists.1  This 
halcyon  season  was  the  boyhood  of  Dante  and  Giotto, 
the  prime  of  Arnolfo  and  Cimabue.  The  buildings 
whereby  the  City  of  the  Flower  is  still  made  beautiful 
above  all  cities  of  Italian  soil,  were  rising.  The 
people  abode  in  industry  and  order  beneath  the  sway 
of  their  elected  leaders.  Supreme  in  Tuscany,  fearing 
no  internal  feuds,  strong  in  their  militia  of  thirty 
thousand  burghers  to  repel  a  rival  State,  the  Floren- 
tines had  reached  the  climax  of  political  prosperity. 
Not  as  yet  had  arisen  that  little  cloud,  no  bigger  than 
a  man's  hand,  above  Pistoja,  which  was  destined  to 
plunge  them  into  the  strife  of  Blacks  and  Whites. 
During  that  interval  of  windless  calm,  in  that  fair 
city,  where  the  viol  and  the  lute  were  never  silent  through 
spring-tide  and  summer,  the  star  of  Italian  poetry,  that 
"  crowning  glory  of  unblemished  wealth,"  went  up  and 
filled  the  heavens  with  light. 

|  See  Paradiso,  xv.;  Giov.  VUL  vi.  69, 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE     TRIUMVIRATE. 

Chivalrous  Poetry — Ideal  of  Chivalrous  Love — Bolognese  Erudition — 
New  Meaning  given  to  the  Ideal — Metaphysics  of  the  Florentine 
School  of  Lyrists — Guido  Cavalcanti — Philosophical  Poems — Popu- 
lar Songs — Cino  of  Pistoja — Dante's  Vita  Nuova — Beatrice  in  the 
Convito  and  the  Paradiso — The  Preparation  for  the  Divine  Comedy 
in  Literature — Allegory — The  Divine  Comedy — Petrarch's  Position 
in  Life — His  Conception  of  Humanism — Conception  of  Italy — His 
Treatment  of  Chivalrous  Love — Beatrice  and  Laura — The  Canzoniere 
— Boccaccio,  the  Florentine  Bourgeois — His  Point  of  View — His 
Abandonment  of  the  Chivalrous  Standpoint — His  Devotion  to  Art — 
Anticipates  the  Renaissance — The  Decameron — Cotnmedia  Umana — 
Precursors  of  Boccaccio — Novels — Carmina  Vagorum — Plan  of  the 
Book — Its  Moral  Character — The  Visione  Amorosa — Boccaccio's  De- 
scriptions—The Teseide— The  Rime— The  Filocopo—lte  Filostrato 
— The  Ameto,  Fiammetta,  Ninfale,  Corbaccio — Prose  before  Boccac- 
cio— Fioretti  di  San  Francesco  and  Decameron  compared — Influence 
of  Boccaccio  over  the  Prose  Style  of  the  Renaissance — His  Death — 
Close  of  the  Fourteenth  Century — Sacchetti's  Lament 

THE  Sicilians  followed  closely  in  the  track  of  the 
Provencal  poets.  After,  or  contemporaneously  with 
them,  the  same  Italo- Pro  venial  literature  was  culti- 
vated in  the  cities  of  central  Italy.  The  subject- 
matter  of  this  imitative  poetry  was  love — but  love  that 
bore  a  peculiar  relation  to  ordinary  human  feeling. 
Woman  was  regarded  as  an  ideal  being,  to  be  ap- 
proached with  worship  bordering  on  adoration.  The 
lover  derived  personal  force,  virtue,  elevation,  energy, 
from  his  enthusiastic  passion.  Honor,  justice,  cour- 
age, self-sacrifice,  contempt  of  worldly  goods,  flowed 


60  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

from  that  one  sentiment;  and  love  united  two  wills 
in  a  single  ecstasy.  Love  was  the  consummation  of 
spiritual  felicity,  which  surpassed  all  other  modes  of 
happiness  in  its  beatitude.  Thus  Bernard  de  Venta- 
dour  and  Jacopo  da  Lentino  were  ready  to  forego 
Paradise  unless  they  might  behold  their  lady's  face 
before  the  throne  of  God.  For  a  certain  period  in 
modern  history,  this  mysticism  of  the  amorous  emotion 
was  no  affectation.  It  formulated  a  genuine  impulse 
of  manly  hearts,  inflamed  by  beauty,  and  touched  with 
the  sense  of  moral  superiority  in  woman,  perfected 
through  weakness  and  demanding  physical  protection. 
By  bringing  the  cruder  passions  into  accor*d  with 
gentle  manners  and  unselfish  aspirations,  it  served  to 
temper  the  rudeness  of  primitive  society ;  and  no  little 
of  its  attraction  was  due  to  the  conviction  that  only 
refined  natures  could  experience  it.  This  new  aspect 
of  love  was  due  to  chivalry,  to  Christianity,  to  the 
Teutonic  reverence  for  women,  in  which  religious  awe 
seems  to  have  blended  with  the  service  of  the  weaker 
by  the  stronger. 

Sincere  and  beautiful  as  the  ideal  of  chivalrous 
love  may  have  been,  it  speedily  degenerated.  Chiv- 
alry, though  a  vital  element  of  feudalism,  existed,  even 
among  the  nations  of  its  origin,  more  as  an  aspiration 
than  a  reality.  In  Italy  it  never  penetrated  the  life  or 
subdued  the  imagination  of  the  people.  For  the  Italo- 
Provengal  poets  that  code  of  love  was  almost  wholly 
formal.  They  found  it  ready  made.  They  used 
it  because  the  culture  of  a  Court,  in  sympathy  with 
feudal  Europe,  left  them  no  other  choice.  Not  Arthur, 
but  the  Virgilian  ^tneas,  was  still  the  Italian  hero; 


CHIVALROUS  LOVE.  6l 

and  instead  of  S.  Louis,  the  nations  of  the  South  could 
only  boast  of  a  crusading  Frederick  II.  Frederick  the 
troubadour  was  a  no  less  anomalous  being  than 
Frederick  the  crusader.  He  conformed  to  contempo- 
rary fashion,  but  his  spirit  ran  counter  to  the  age. 
Curiosity,  incipient  humanism,  audacious  doubt,  the 
toleration  which  inclined  him  to  fraternize  with 
Saracens  and  seek  the  learning  of  the  Arabs,  placed 
him  outside  the  sphere  of  thirteenth  century  con- 
ceptions. His  expedition  to  the  East  appears  a  mere 
parade  excursion,  hypocritical,  political,  ironical.  In 
like  manner  his  love-poetry  and  that  of  his  courtiers 
rings  hollow  in  our  ears. 

It  harmonized  with  the  Italian  genius,  when 
Guido  Guinicelli  treated  chivalrous  love  from  the 
standpoint  of  Bolognese  learning.  He  altered  none 
of  the  forms;  he  used  the  conventional  phraseo- 
logy. But  he  infused  a  new  spirit  into  the  subject- 
matter.  His  poetry  ceased  to  be  formal;  the  phrases 
were  no  longer  verbiage.  The  epicureanism  of  Freder- 
ick's life  clashed  with  the  mystic  exaltation  of  knight- 
hood. There  was  no  discord  between  Guide's  scientific 
habit  of  mind  and  his  expression  of  a  philosophical  idea 
conveyed  in  terms  of  amorous  enthusiasm.  Upon 
his  lips  the  words: 

Al  cor  gentil  ripara  sempre  Amore, 
Come  1'augello  in  selva  alia  verdura; 
Ne  fe*  Amore  anti  che  gentil  core, 
Ne  gentil  cor  anti  che  Amor,  Natura: 

acquire  reality — not  the  reality  of  passion,  but  of 
sincere  thought.  They  do  not  convey  the  spontaneity 
of  feeling,  but  a  philosopher's  contemplation  of  love 


63  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

and  beauty  in  their  influence  on  human  character 
Guide's  mood  might  be  compared  with  that  of  the 
Greek  sage,  when  he  exclaimed  that  neither  the  morn- 
ing nor  the  evening  star  is  so  wonderful  as  Justice,  or 
when  he  thus  apostrophized  Virtue: 

Virtue,  to  men  thou  bringest  care  and  toil; 
Yet  art  thou  life's  best,  fairest  spoil ! 
O  virgin  goddess,  for  thy  beauty's  sake 
To  die  is  delicate  in  this  our  Greece, 
Or  to  endure  of  pain  the  stern,  strong  ache. 

For  the  chivalrous  races,  Love  had  been  an  enthusiastic 
ideal.  For  the  Italo-Provengal  euphuists  it  supplied 
an  artificial  -inspiration.  At  Bologna  it  became  the 
form  of  transcendental  science;  and  here  the  Italian 
intellect  touched,  by  accident  or  instinct,  the  same  note 
that  had  been  struck  by  Plato  in  the  "  Phsedrus  "  and 
"  Symposium." 

A  public  trained  in  legal  and  scholastic  studies, 
whose  mental  furniture  was  drawn  from  S.  Thomas 
and  Accursius,  hailed  their  poet  in  Guido  Guinicelli. 
For  them  it  was  natural  that  poetry  should  veil  phi- 
losophy with  verse;  that  love  should  be  confounded 
with  the  movement  of  the  soul  toward  truth;  that 
beauty  should  be  treated  as  the  manifestation  of  a 
spiritual  good.  Dante  in  his  Canzone,  Donne  ch'  avete 
intelletto  d'  amore,  appeals,  not  to  emotion,  but  to  in- 
telligence. He  tells  us  that  understanding  was  the 
ancient  name  of  lave,  and  describes  the  effect  of  passion 
in  a  young  man's  heart  as  a  revelation  raising  him 
above  the  level  of  common  experience.  Thus  the 
transmutation  of  the  simpler  elements  of  the  chivalrous 
code  into  philosophical  doctrine,  where  the  form  of  the 


ITALIAN   SCIENCE.  63 

worshiped  lady  transcends  the  sphere  of  sense,  and 
her  spirit  is  identified  with  the  lover's  deepest  thought 
and  loftiest  aspiration,  was  sincere  in  medieval  Florence. 
The  Tuscan  intellect  was  too  virile  and  sternly  strung 
to  be  satisfied  with  amorous  rhymes.  The  contem- 
porary theory  of  aesthetics  demanded  allegory,  and 
imposed  upon  the  poet  erudition ;  nor  was  it  easy  for 
the  singer  of  that  epoch  to  command  his  own  immediate 
emotions,  or  to  use  them  for  the  purposes  of  a  direct 
and  plastic  art.  Enjoying  neither  the  freedom  of  the 
Greek  nor  the  disengagement  of  the  modern  spirit, 
he  found  it  more  proper  to  clothe  a  scientific  content 
with  the  veil  of  passion,  than  to  paint  the  personality 
of  the  woman  he  loved  with  natural  precision.  Be- 
tween the  mysticism  of  a  sublime  but  visionary  adora- 
tion on  the  one  side,  and  the  sensualities  of  vulgar 
appetite  or  the  decencies  of  married  life  on  the  other, 
there  lay  for  him  no  intermediate  artistic  region.  He 
understood  the  love  of  the  imagination  and  the  love  of 
the  senses;  but  the  love  of  the  heart,  familiar  to  the 
Northern  races,  hardly  existed  for  him. 

And  here  it  may  be  parenthetically  noticed  that  the 
Italians,  in  the  middle  ages,  created  no  feminine  ideal 
analogous  to  Gudrun  or  Chriemhild,  Iseult  or  Guine- 
vere. When  they  left  the  high  region  of  symbolism, 
they  descended  almost  without  modulation  to  the  prose 
of  common  life.  Thus  the  Selvaggia  of  Cino,  the 
Beatrice  of  Dante,  the  Laura  of  Petrarch,  made  way 
for  the  Fiammetta  of  Boccaccio  and  the  women  of  the 
Decameron,  when  that  ecstasy  of  earlier  enthusiasm 
was  exhausted.  For  a  while,  however,  the  Florentines 
were  well  prepared  to  give  an  intellectual  significance, 


64  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

and  with  it  a  new  life,  to  the  outworn  conventions  of 
the  Italo-Provengal  lyrists.  Nor  must  it  be  thought 
that  the  emotions  thus  philosophized  were  unreal, 
Dante  loved  Beatrice,  though  she  became  for  him  an 
allegory.  The  splendid  vision  of  her  beauty  and  good- 
ness attended  him  through  life,  assuming  the  guidance 
of  his  soul  in  all  its  stages.  Difficult  as  it  may  be  to 
comprehend  this  blending  of  the  real  and  transcen- 
dental, we  must  grasp  it  if  we  desire  to  penetrate  the 
spirit  of  the  fourteenth  century  in  Italy. 

The  human  heart  remains  unchanged.  No  meta- 
physical sophistication,  no  allegory,  no  scholastic  mysti- 
cism, can  destroy  the  spontaneity  of  instinct  in  a  man 
who  loves,  or  cloud  a  poet's  vision.  Love  does  not 
cease  to  be  love  because  it  is  sublimed  to  the  quint- 
essence of  a  self-denying  passion.  It  still  retains  its 
life  in  feeling,  and  its  root  in  sense.  Beauty  does  not 
cease  to  be  beautiful  because  it  has  been  moralized  and 
identified  with  the  attraction  that  lifts  men  upward  to 
the  sphere  of  the  eternal  truths.  Nor  is  poetry  ex- 
tinguished because  the  singer  deems  it  his  vocation  to 
utter  genuine  thought,  and  scorns  the  rhyming  pas- 
times of  the  simple  amorist.  The  Florentine  school 
presents  us  with  a  poetry  which  aimed  at  being  philo- 
sophical, but  which  at  the  same  time  vibrated  with  life 
and  delineated  moods  of  delicate  emotion.  To  effect 
a  flawless  fusion  between  these  two  strains  in  the  new 
style,  was  infinitely  difficult ;  nor  were  the  poets  of  that 
epoch  equally  successful.  Guido  Cavalcanti,  the  leader 
of  the  group  which  culminates  in  Dante,  won  his  fame 
by  verse  that  savors  more  of  the  dialectician  than  the 
singer.  Ranking  science  above  poetry,  he  is  said  to 


GUIDO    CAVALCANTL  65 

have  disdained  even  Virgil.  His  odes  are  dryly 
scholastic — especially  that  famous  Donna  mi  priega, 
which  contemporaries  studied  clause  by  clause,  and 
which,  after  two  centuries,  served  Dino  del  Garbo  for 
the  text  of  a  metaphysical  discourse.1  At  the  same 
time,  certain  lyrics,  composed  in  a  lighter  mood  by  the 
same  poet,  have  in  them  the  essence  of  spontaneous 
and  natural  inspiration.  His  Ballate  were  probably 
regarded  by  himself  and  his  friends  as  playthings, 
thrown  off  in  idle  moments  to  distract  a  mind  engaged 
in  thorny  speculations.  Yet  we  find  here  the  first  full 
blossom  of  genuine  Italian  verse.  Their  beauty  is  that 
of  popular  song,  starting  flowerlike  from  the  soil, 
and  fragrant  in  its  first  expansion  beneath  the  sun  of 
courtesy  and  culture.  Nothing  remained,  in  this  kind, 
for  Boccaccio  and  Poliziano,  but  to  echo  the  Ballata  of 
the  country  maidens,  and  to  complete  the  welcome  to 
the  May.2 

Two  currents  of  verse,  the  one  rising  from  the 
senses,  the  other  from  the  brain,  the  one  deriving  force 
and  fullness  from  the  people,  the  other  nourished  by 
the  schools,  flowed  apart  in  Guido  Cavalcanti's  poetry. 
They  were  combined  into  a  single  stream  by  Cino  da 
Pistoja.3  Cino  was  a  jurist  of  encyclopaedic  erudition, 

1  Rime  di  Guido  Cavalcanti  t  edite  edinedite,  etc.,  Firenze,  1813.  See 
p.  29  for  the  Canzone,  and  p.  73  for  a  translation  into  Italian  of  Dino's 
Latin  commentary. 

*  Op.  cit.  pp.  21-27.  Two  in  particular,  Era  in  pensier  and  Gh 
occhi  di  quella  gentil forosetta,  may  be  singled  out.  A  pastourelle,  In 
un  boschetto,  anticipates  the  manner  of  Sacchetti.  As  for  the  May  song, 
its  opening  lines,  Ben  venga  Maggio,  etc.,  are  referred  by  Carducci  to 
Guido  Cavalcanti. 

3  See  Vita  e  Poesie  di  Messer  Cino  da  Pistoja,  Pisa,  Capurro,  1813. 
Abo  Barbara's  diamond  edition  of  Cino  da  Pistoja  and  other  poets,  edited 
by  Carducci. 


66  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

as  well  as  a  sweet  and  fluent  singer.1  His  verseb 
have  the  polish  and  something  of  the  chill  of  marble. 
His  Selvaggia  deserves  a  place  with  Beatrice  and 
Laura.  From  Cino  Petrarch  derived  his  mastery  of 
limpid  diction.  In  Cino  the  artistic  sense  of  the 
Italians  awoke.  He  produced  something  distinct 
both  from  the  scientific  style  of  Guido  Guinicelli,  and 
also  from  the  wilding  song  which  Guido  Cavalcanti's 
Ballate  echoed.  He  seems  to  have  applied  himself  to 
the  main  object  of  polishing  poetical  diction,  and 
rendering  expression  at  once  musical  and  lucid.2 
Though  his  hold  upon  ideas  was  not  so  firm  as 
Cavalcanti's,  nor  his  passion  so  intense,  he  achieved  a 
fusion  of  thought  and  feeling  in  an  artistic  whole  of 
sympathetic  suavity.  We  instinctively  compare  his 
work  with  that  of  Mino  da  Fiesole  in  bass-relief. 

Dante  was  five  years  older  than  Cino.  To  him 
belongs  the  glory  of  having  effected  the  same  fusion  in 
a  lyric  poetry  at  once  more  comprehensive  and  more 
lofty.  Dante  yields  no  point  as  a  dialectician  and 
subtle  thinker  to  Guido  Cavalcanti.  He  surpasses 
Cino  da  Pistoja  as  an  artist.  His  passion  and 
imagination  are  more  fiery  than  Guido's.  His  tender- 
ness is  deeper  and  more  touching  than  Cino's.  Even 

1  The  tomb  of  Cino  in  the  Duomo  at  Pistoja,  with  its  Gothic  canopies 
and  the  bass-reliefs  which  represent  a  Doctor  of  Laws  lecturing  to  men  of 
all  ranks  and  ages  at  their  desks  beneath  his  professorial  chair,  is  a  fine 
contemporary  monument.  The  great  jurist  is  here  commemorated,  not 
the  master  of  Petrarch  in  the  art  of  song. 

1  Cp.  Dante  De  Vulg.  Eloq.  i.  17,  upon  Cino's  purification  of  Italian 
from  vulgarisms,  with  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  who  calls  Cino  "  tutto  delicato 
e  veramente  amoroso,  il  quale  primo,  al  mio  parere,  cominci6  1'  antico 
rozzore  in  tutto  a  schifare."  Lettera  all'  illustr.  Sig.  Federigo,  Poesie 
(ed.  Barbera,  1858),  p.  33. 


DANTE'S  LYRICS.  67 

in  those  minor  works  with  which  he  preluded  the 
Divine  Comedy,  Dante  soars  above  all  competition, 
taking  rank  among  the  few  poets  born  to  represent 
an  age  and  be  the  everlasting  teachers  of  the  human 
soul.  Yet  even  Dante,  though  knowing  that  he  was 
destined  to  eclipse  both  the  Guidi,  though  claiming 
Love  alone  for  his  inspirer,  was  not  wholly  free  from 
the  scholasticism  of  his  century.  In  the  earlier  lyrics 
of  the  Vtfq  Nuava  and  in  the  Canzoni  of  the  Convito, 
he  allows  his  feeling  to  be  over-weighted  by  the 
scientific  content.  Between  his  emotion  and  our  sym- 
pathy there  rises,  now  and  again,  the  mist  of  meta- 
physic.  While  giving  them  intenser  meaning,  he  still 
plays  upon  the  commonplaces  of  his  predecessors. 
Thus  in  the  sonnet  Amor  e  7  cor  gentil  son  una  cosa 
he  rehandles  Guinicelli's  theme;  while  the  following 
stanza  repeats  the  well-worn  doctrine  that  Love  should 
be  the  union  of  beauty  and  of  excellence * : 

Che  la  heltk  che  Amore  in  voi  consente, 

A  virtu  solamente 

Formata  fu  dal  suo  decreto  antico, 

Contro  lo  qual  fallate. 

lo  dico  a  voi  che  siete  innamorate, 

Che  se  beltate  a  voi 

Fu  data,  e  virtu  a  noi, 

Ed  a  costui  di  due  potere  un  fare, 

Voi  non  dovreste  amare, 

Ma  coprir  quanto  di  belte  vi  e  dato, 

Poiche  non  e  virtu,  ch'  era  suo  segno. 

Dante's  concessions  to  the  mannerism  of  the  school 
weigh  as  nothing  in  the  scales  against  the  beauty 
and  the  truth  of  that  most  spiritual  of  romances,  to 

'  H  Cantoniere  (Fraticelli's  edition),  p.  199. 


68  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

which  the  Vita  Nuova  gives  melodic  utterance.  With- 
in the  compass  of  one  little  book  is  bound  up  all 
that  Florence  in  the  thirteenth  century  contributed  to 
the  refinement  of  medieval  manners,  together  with  all 
that  the  new  school  of  poets  had  imagined  of  highest 
in  their  philosophical  conception.  The  harmony  of 
life  and  science  attains  completion  in  the  real  but 
idealized  experience,  which  transcends  and  combines 
both  motives  in  a  personality  uniquely  constituted  for 
this  blending.  It  is  enough  for  the  young  Dante  to 
meet  Beatrice,  to  pass  her  among  her  maidens  in  the 
city-ways,  to  receive  her  salute,  to  admire  her  moving 
through  the  many-colored  crowd,  to  meditate  upon 
her  apparition,  as  of  one  of  God's  angels,  in  the 
solitude  of  his  chamber.  She  is  a  dream,  a  vision. 
But  it  is  the  dream  of  his  existence,  the  vision  that 
unfolds  for  him  the  universe  —  more  actual,  more 
steeped  in  emotion,  more  stimulative  of  sublime  aspira- 
tion and  virile  purpose  than  many  loves  which  find 
fruition  in  long  years  of  intercourse.  We  feel  that 
the  man's  true  self  has  been  revealed  to  him ;  that  he 
has  given  his  life-blood  to  the  ideal  which,  without 
this  nourishment,  would  have  ranked  among  phantoms, 
but  is  now  reality.  Students  who  have  not  followed 
the  stages  through  which  the  doctrine  of  chivalrous 
love  reached  Dante,  and  the  process  whereby  it  was 
transmuted  into  science  for  the  guidance  of  the  soul, 
will  regard  the  records  of  the  Yita  Nuova  as  shadowy 
or  sentimental.  Or  if  they  only  dwell  upon  the 
philosophical  aspect  of  Dante's  work,  if  they  do  not 
make  allowance  for  the  natural  stirring  of  a  heart  that 
throbbed  with  liveliest  feeling,  they  will  fail  to  com- 


THE    "VITA    NUOVA."  69 

prehend  this  book,  at  once  so  complex  and  so  simple. 
The  point  lies  exactly  in  the  fusion  of  two  elements — 
in  the  truth  of  the  passion,  the  truth  of  the  idealization, 
and  the  spontaneity  of  the  artistic  form  combining 
them.  What  is  most  intelligible,  because  most  com- 
mon to  all  phases  of  profound  emotion,  in  the  Vita 
Nuova,  is  its  grief — the  poet's  sympathy  with  Beatrice 
in  the  house  of  mourning  for  her  .father's  death,  the 
vision  of  her  own  passage  from  earth  to  heaven,  and 
the  apostrophe  to  the  pilgrims  who  thread  the  city 
clothed  with  mourning  for  her  loss.1  No  one,  reading 
these  poems,  will  doubt  that,  though  Beatrice  did  but 
cross  the  path  of  Dante's  life  and  shed  her  brightness 
on  it  for  a  season  from  afar,  the  thought  of  her  had 
penetrated  heart  and  fiber,  making  him  a  man  new- 
born through  love,  and  striking  in  his  soul  a  note  that 
should  resound  through  all  his  years,  through  all  the 
centuries  which  grow  to  understand  him. 

Dante  was  born  in  1266  of  poor  but  noble  parents, 
who  reconciled  themselves  to  the  Guelf  party.  He 
first  saw  Beatrice  in  his  ninth  year;  and,  when  a  man, 
he  well  remembered  how  her  beauty  dawned  upon 
him.2  "  Her  dress,  on  that  day,  was  of  a  most  noble 
color,  a  subdued  and  goodly  crimson,  girdled  and 
adorned  in  such  sort  as  best  suited  with  her  very 
tender  age.  At  that  moment,  I  say  most  truly  that 
the  spirit  of  life,  which  hath  its  dwelling  in  the  secretest 
chamber  of  the  heart,  began  to  tremble  so  violently 
that  the  least  pulses  of  my  body  shook  therewith;  and 
in  trembling  it  said  these  words:  Ecce  deus  fortior  me.. 

1  Voi  che  portate;  Donna  pietosa;  Deh  peregrini. 
•  See  Rossetti's  translation  of  the  Vita  Nuova. 


70  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

qui  veniens  dominabitur  mihi"  Beatrice  died  in  1290 
and  Dante  closed  the  Vita  Nuova  with  these  words l : 
"  It  was  given  unto  me  to  behold  a  very  wonderful  vision ; 
wherein  I  saw  things  which  determined  me  that  I 
would  say  nothing  further  of  this  most  blessed  one, 
until  such  time  as  I  could  discourse  more  worthily  con- 
cerning her.  And  to  this  end  I  labor  all  I  can ;  as 
she  well  knoweth.  Wherefore  if  it  be  His  pleasure 
through  whom  is  the  life  of  all  things,  that  my  life 
continue  with  me  a  few  years,  it  is  my  hope  that  I 
shall  yet  write  concerning  her  what  hath  not  before 
been  written  of  any  woman.  After  the  which,  may  it 
seem  good  unto  Him  who  is  the  Master  of  Grace, 
that  my  spirit  should  go  hence  to  behold  the  glory  of 
its  lady:  to  wit,  of  that  blessed  Beatrice  who  now 
gazeth  continually  on  His  countenance  gut  est  per 
omnia  scecula  benedictus.  Lam  Deo" 

This  passage  was  written  possibly  in  Dante's 
twenty-eighth  year.  The  consecration  of  his  younger 
manhood  was  the  love  of  Beatrice.  She  made  him  a 
poet.  Through  her  came  to  him  the  "  sweet  new 
style,"  which  shone  with  purest  luster  in  his  verse; 
and  the  songs  he  made  of  Beatrice  were  known 
through  all  the  City  of  the  Flower.  Yet  love  had  not 
absorbed  his  energies.  He  studied  under  Brunette 
Latini,  and  qualified  himself  for  the  career  of  a  Flor- 
entine citizen  by  entering  the  Guild  of  Speziali. 
After  Beatrice's  death  a  great  and  numbing  sorrow 
fell  upon  him.  From  this  eclipse  he  recovered  by  the 
help  of  reading,  and  also  by  the  distractions  of  public 
life.  He  fought  in  the  battle  of  Campaldino,  and 

1  Rossetti's  translation  of  the  Vita  Nuova. 


DANTE'S  LIFE.  ^\ 

married  his  wife  Gemma  Donati.  He  went  as  ambas- 
sador to  San  Gemignano  in  1299;  and  in  the  year 
1300,  when  Florence  was  divided  by  the  parties  of 
Cerchi  and  Donati,  he  fulfilled  the  functions  of  the 
Priorate.  These  ten  years  between  Beatrice's  death 
and  Dante's  election  as  Prior  were  a  period  of  hesita- 
tion and  transition.  He  was  no  longer  the  poet  of 
QJLYJne.  Love,  inspired  by  spontaneous  emotion,  master- 
ing and  glorifying  the  form  which  tradition  imposed 
on  verse.  He  had  become  a  student  of  philosophy; 
and  this  change  makes  itself  felt  in  the  more  abstruse 
and  abstract  odes  of  the  Cgwyitp.  Yet  he  was  still 
attended,  through  those  years  of  study,  civic  engage- 
ments and  domestic  duties,  by  the  vision  of  Beatrice. 
This  is  how  he  speaks  of  science  in  the  second  part  of 
the  Convito:  "  After  some  time  my  mind,  which  strove 
to  regain  strength,  bethought  itself  (since  neither  my 
own  consolations  nor  those  of  friends  availed  me 
aught)  of  having  recourse  to  the  method  which  had 
helped  to  comfort  other  spirits  in  distress.  I  took  to 
reading  the  book,  not  known  to  many  students,  of 
Boethius,  wherewith,  unhappy  and  in  exile,  he  had 
comforted  himself.  And  hearing  also  that  Tully  had 
written  another  book  in  which,  while  treating  of  friend- 
ship, he  had  used  words  of  consolation  to  Laelius  in 
the  death  of  his  friend  Scipio,  I  read  that  also,  and  as 
it  happens  that  a  man  goes  seeking  silver,  and  far 
from  his  design  finds  gold,  which  hidden  causes  yield 
him,  not  perchance  without  God's  guidance,  so  I  who 
sought  for  consolation  found  not  only  comfort  for  my 
tears,  but  also  words  of  authors  and  of  sciences  and  of 
books,  weighing  the  which,  I  judged  well  that  philo- 


72  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

sophy,  the  lady  of  these  authors,  of  these  sciences  and 
of  these  books,  was  a  thing  supreme.  And  I  imagined 
her  in  fashion  like  a  gentle  lady,  nor  could  I  fancy  her 
otherwise  than  piteous;  wherefore  so  truly  did  I  gaze 
upon  her  with  adoring  eyes  that  scarcely  could  I  turn 
myself  away.  And  having  thus  imagined  her  I  began 
to  go  where  she  displayed  her  very  self,  that  is,  in  the 
schools  of  the  religious,  and  the  disputations  of  philo- 
sophers; so  that  in  short  time,  about  thirty  months,  I 
began  so  much  to  feel  her  sweetness  that  her  love 
chased  away  and  destroyed  all  other  thought  in 
me." 

Beatrice,  who  in  her  lifetime  had  been  the  revela- 
tion of  beauty  and  all  good,  lifting  her  lover  above  the 
region  of  sordid  thoughts,  and  opening  a  sphere  of 
spiritual   intelligence,   now   accompanied   him   througl 
the    labyrinths    of    speculation.      She    was    still    th< 
form,  the   essence,   of  all   he   learned;   and   the  vo^ 
which    closes    the    Vita   Nuova    had    not    been    for- 
gotten. 

Through  the  transition  period,  marked  by  the 
Convito,  we  are  led  to  the  third  stage  of  Dante's  life — 
those  twenty-one  years,  during  which  he  roamed  in 
exile  over  Italy,  and  wrote  the  poem  of  medieval 
Christianity.  The  studies  of  which  the  Convito  forms 
a  fragment,  and  the  political  career  which  ended  in  the 
embassy  to  Boniface,  were  both  necessary  for  the 
Divine  Comedy.  Had  it  not  been  for  Dante's  exile, 
the  modern  worfd  might  have  lacked  its  first  and 
greatest  epic;  Beatrice  might  have  missed  her  pro- 
mised apotheosis.  As  her  hand  had  guided  him 
through  the  paths  of  love  and  the  labyrinths  of 


RELIGIOUS  LITERATURE.  73 

science,  so  now  the  brightness  of  her  glorified  face 
lifted  him  from  sphere  to  sphere  of  Paradise.  By 
gazing  on  her  eyes,  he  rose  through  heaven,  and  stood 
with  her  before  the  splendor  of  the  Beatific  Vision. 
To  identify  Beatrice  with  Theology  in  this  last  stage 
of  Dante's  spiritual  life  is  a  facile  but  inadequate  ex- 
pedient of  criticism.  From  the  earliest  she  had  been 
for  him  the  light  and  guidance  of  his  soul;  and  at  the 
last  he  ascribed  to  her  the  best  and  the  sublimest  of 
his  inspirations. 

Since  its  origin  Italian  poetry  had  pursued  one 
line  of  evolution,  first  following  and  then  transmuting 
the  traditions  of  Provence.  In  the  Divine  Comedy 
it  took  a  new  direction.  Chivalry,  insufficient  for  the 
nation  and  ill-adapted  to  its  temper,  yielded  to  a 
motive  force  derived  from  the  religious  sentiment. 
The  Bible  history,  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  Church  concerning  the  future  of  man- 
kind, together  with  the  emotions  of  piety,  had  hitherto 
received  but  partial  exposition  at  the  hands  of  a  few 
poets  of  the  people.  S.  Francis  struck  the  keynote 
of  popular  Italian  poetry  in  his  Cantico  del  Sole,  which 
can  be  accepted  as  the  first  specimen  of  composition 
in  the  vulgar  tongue.  Guittone  of  Arezzo,  already 
mentioned  as  the  earliest  learned  poet  who  attempted 
to  nationalize  his  style,  acquired  fame  as  the  writer  of 
one  sublime  sonnet  to  Madonna  and  two  Canzoni  to 
the  Mother  and  her  ..Son.1  But  the  most  decisive  im- 
pulse toward  religious  poetry  was  given  by  the  Flagel- 

1  Donna  del  cielo;  O  benigna,  o  dolce;  O  ban  Gesii,     See  Rime  dl 
Fra  Guittone  d'  Arezzo  (Firenze,  Morandi,  1828),  vol.  ii.  pp.  212,  3; 

70 1.    1.   p.  6l. 


74  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

lants,  who,  starting  from  the  Umbrian  highlands  in 
1290,  diffused  their  peculiar  devotion  over  Italy.  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  return  in  a  future  chapter  to  the 
history  of  this  movement  and  to  trace  its  influence 
over  popular  Italian  literature.  It  is  enough,  at  pre- 
sent, to  have  mentioned  it  among  the  forces  tending 
toward  religious  poetry  upon  the  close  of  the  thir- 
teenth century. 

The  spirit  of  the  epoch  inclined  to  Allegory  and 
Vision.  When  we  remember  the  prestige  of  Virgil 
in  the  middle  ages,  both  as  a  philosopher  and  also  as 
the  precursor  of  Christianity,  it  will  be  understood  how 
his  descent  into  Hades  fascinated  the  imagination,  and 
prepared  the  mind  to  accept  the  Vision  as  a  proper 
form  for  conveying  theological  doctrine.1  The  Jour- 
ney of  S.  Brandan,  the  Purgatory  of  S.  Patrick,  and 
the  Visions  of  Tundalus  and  Alberic  pretended  to 
communicate  information  concerning  the  soul's  state 
after  death,  the  places  of  punishment,  and  the  method 
of  salvation.  In  course  of  time  the  Vision  was  used 
for  political  or  ecclesiastical  purposes  by  preachers  who 
averred  that  they  had  seen  the  souls  of  eminent  sinners 
in  torment.  It  became  an  engine  of  terrorism,  as- 
sumed satiric  tone,  and  finally  fell  into  the  hands  of 
didactic  or  merely  fanciful  poets.2 

The  chief  preoccupation  of  the  medieval  mind  was 
with  the  future  destiny  of  man.  This  life  came  to  be 

1  Not  only  the  sixth  ^Eneid,  but  the  Dream  of  Scipio  also,  influenced 
the  medieval  imagination.  The  Biblical  visions,  whether  allegorical  like 
those  of  Ezekiel  and  Paul,  or  apocalyptic,  like  S.  John's,  exercised  a  sim- 
ilar control. 

8  See  the  little  book  of  curious  learning  by  Alessandro  d'  Ancona, 
entitled  I  Precursori  di  Dante,  Firenze,  Sansoni,  1874. 


THE    VISION.  75 

regarded  as  a  preparation  for  eternity.  Like  a  fore- 
ground, the  actual  world  served  to  relieve  the  picture 
of  the  world  beyond  the  grave.  Therefore  popular 
literature  abounded  in  manuals  of  devotion  and  disci- 
pline, some  of  which  set  forth  the  history  of  the  soul 
in  allegorical  form.  Among  other  examples  may  be 
cited  three  stories  of  the  spiritual  life,  corresponding 
to  its  three  stages  of  Nature,  Purification,  and  Restor- 
ation, conveyed  under  the  titles  of  Umano,  Spoglia, 
Rinuova.  Many  prelusions  of  this  class  were  com- 
bined in  one  religious  drama  called  Commedia  deW 
Anima,  the  substance  of  which  is  certainly  old,  though 
the  form  yields  evidence  of  sixteenth-century  rifaci- 
mento.1 

The  object  of  the  foregoing  paragraphs  has  been 
to  show  that  the  popular  intellect  was  well  prepared 
for  religious  poetry,  and  had  appropriated  the  forms 
of  Allegory  and  Vision.  Not  in  order  to  depreciate 
the  originality  of  Dante,  but  to  prove  in  how  vital  a 
relation  he  stood  toward  his  age,  I  have  here  insisted 
on  those  formless  preludes  to  his  work  of  art.  In  the 
Epistle  to  Can  Grande  he  thus  explains  the  theme  of 
the  Commedia:  "  The  subject  of  the  whole  work,  taken 
literally,  is  the  state  of  souls  after  death,  regarded  as 
fact;  for  the  action  deals  with  this,  and  is  about  this 

1  See  De  Sanctis,  Storia  della  Letteratura  Italiana,  vol.  i.  chap.  5. 
Of  the  Commedia  Spirituale  dell'  Anima  I  have  seen  a  Sienese  copy 
of  the  date  1608,  a  reprint  from  some  earlier  Florentine  edition.  The 
Comedy  is  introduced  by  two  boys,  good  and  bad.  The  piece  itself 
brings  God  as  the  Creator,  the  soul  He  has  made,  its  guardian  angel, 
the  devil,  the  powers  of  Memory,  Reason,  Will,  and  all  the  virtues  in 
succession,  with  corresponding  vices,  on  the  scene.  It  ends  with  the 
soul's  judgment  after  death  and  final  marriage  to  Christ.  Dramatically 
It  is  almost  devoid  of  merit. 


76  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

But  if  the  work  be  taken  allegorically,  its  subject  is 
man,  in  so  far  as  by  merit  or  demerit  in  the  exercise 
of  free  will  he  is  exposed  to  the  rewards  or  punish- 
ments of  justice."  Attending  to  the  letter,  we  find  in 
the  Commedia  a  vision  of  that  life  beyond  the  tomb, 
in  relation  to  which  alone  our  life  on  earth  has  value. 
It  presents  a  picture  of  the  everlasting  destiny  of 
souls,  so  firmly  apprehended  and  vividly  imagined  by 
the  medieval  fancy.  But  since  this  picture  has  to  set 
forth  mysteries  seen  and  heard  by  none,  the  revelation 
itself,  like  S.  John's  Apocalypse,  is  conveyed  in  sym- 
bols fashioned  to  adumbrate  the  truths  perceived  by 
faith.  The  same  symbols  portray  another  reality, 
not  apprehended  merely  by  faith,  but  brought  home 
to  the  heart  by  experience.  Attending  to  the  allegory, 
we  find  in  the  Commedia  a  history  of  the  soul  in  this 
life — an  ethical  analysis  of  sin,  purgation  and  salvation 
through  grace.  The  poem  is  a  narrative  of  Dante's 
journey  through  the  region  into  which  all  pass  after 
death;  but  at  the  same  time  it  describes  the  hell  and 
heaven  and  the  transition  through  repentance  from 
sin  to  grace,  which  are  the  actual  conditions  of  the 
soul  in  this  life.  The  Inferno  depicts  unmitigated 
evil.  The  Paradiso  exhibits  goodness,  absolute  and 
free  from  stain.  In  the  one  there  is  no  relief,  in  the 
other  no  alloy;  the  one  is  darkness,  the  other  light. 
The  intermediate  region  of  the  Purgatorio  is  a  realm 
of  expectation  and  conversion,  where  sin  is  no  longer 
possible,  but  where  the  fruition  of  goodness  is  delayed 
by  the  necessity  of  purification.  Here  then  are  the 
natural  alternations  of  day  and  night,  the  relative 
twilight  c-f  a  world  where  all  is  yet  transition  rather 


STRUCTURE    OF  "DIVINE    COMEDY."  77 

than  fulfillment.  It  may  be  observed  that  Purga- 
tory belongs  to  the  order  of  things  which  by  their 
nature  pass  away;  while  Hell  and  Heaven  are  both 
eternal.  Therefore  the  Commedia,  considered  as 
an  apocalypse  of  the  undying  soul,  reveals  absolute 
damnation  and  absolute  salvation,  both  states  being 
destined  to  endure  so  long  as  God's  justice  and  love 
exist;  but  it  also  reveals  a  state  of  purifying  pain, 
which  ceases  when  the  men  who  need  it  have  been 
numbered.  Considered  as  an  allegory  of  the  spiritual 
life  on  earth,  it  describes  the  process  of  escape  from 
eternal  condemnation  through  grace  into  eternal 
happiness. 

A  theme  so  vast  and  all-embracing  enabled  Dante 
to  inform  the  whole  knowledge  of  his  epoch.  The 
Commedia  is  the  poem  of  that  scholastic  theology 
which  absorbed  every  branch  of  science  and  brought 
the  world  within  the  scope  of  one  thought,  God.  As 
the  Summa  of  S.  Thomas  combined  philosophy  and 
revelation,  so  Dante  included  both  the  Pagan  and 
Christian  dispensations  in  his  scheme.  He  starts 
from  the  wood  of  terror,  where  men  are  assailed  by  the 
wild  beasts  of  their  passions ;  and  two  guides  lead  him, 
by  the  light  of  knowledge,  up  to  God.  The  one  is 
Virgil,  the  other  Beatrice  —  Virgil,  who  stands  for 
human  reason,  science,  the  four  cardinal  virtues ;  Bea- 
trice, who  symbolizes  divine  grace,  faith  formulated 
in  theology,  the  virtues  bestowed  on  man  through 
Christ  for  his  salvation.  Virgil  cannot  lead  the  poet 
beyond  Purgatory;  because  thus  far  only  is  human 
knowledge  of  avail  to  elevate  and  guide  the  soul. 
Beatrice  lifts  him  through  the  spheres  of  Paradise  by 


78  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

contemplation;  because  the  highest  summit  attained 
by  reason  and  natural  virtue  is  but  the  starting  point 
of  the  true  Christian's  journey. 

The  Commedia  is  thus  the  drama  or  the  epos  of  the 
soul.  It  condenses  all  that  man  has  thought  or  done, 
can  think  or  do;  all  that  he  knows  about  the  universe 
around  him,  all  that  he  hopes  or  fears  from  the  future; 
his  intuition  of  an  incorruptible  and  ideal  order,  under- 
lying and  controlling  the  phenomenal  world.  God,  the 
world  and  man  are  brought  into  one  focus;  and  the 
interest  of  the  poem  is  the  relation  of  the  individual 
soul  to  them,  the  participation  of  each  human  person- 
ality in  the  dramatic  action.  It  need  hardly  be  ob- 
served that  Dante's  solutions  of  the  problems  which 
arise  in  the  development  of  this  theme,  are  medieval. 
His  physical  science  has  been  superseded.  His  the- 
ology is  far  from  approving  itself  to  the  general  con- 
sciousness of  Christians  in  our  age.  Yet  while  all 
must  recognize  this  obvious  truth,  the  essence  of  the 
Commedia  is  indestructible  because  of  its  humanity, 
because  of  the  personality  which  animates  it.  Men 
change  far  less  than  the  hypotheses  of  religion  and  phi- 
losophy, which  take  form  from  experience  as  shadows 
fly  before  the  sun.  However  these  may  alter,  man  re- 
mains substantially  the  same;  and  Dante  penetrated  hu- 
man nature  as  few  have  done — was  such  a  man  as  few 
have  been.  The  unity  and  permanence  of  his  poem  are 
in  himself.  Never  was  a  plan  so  vast  and  various  per- 
meated so  completely  with  a  single  self.  At  once, 
creator  and  spectator  of  his  vision,  neophyte  and  hiero- 
phant,  arraigned  and  judge,  he  has  not  only  seen  hell 
as  the  local  prison-house  of  pain,  but  has  felt  it  as  the 


HUMANITY   OF   THE   POEM. 

state  of  sin  within  his  heart.  He  has  passed  through 
purifying  fires;  and  the  songs  of  Paradise  have 
sounded  by  anticipation  in  his  ears.  Dante  is  both  the 
singer  and  the  hero  of  his  epic.  In  him  the  universal 
idea  of  mankind  becomes  concrete.  The  continuous 
experience  of  this  living  person  who  is  at  one  and  the 
same  time  a  figure  of  each  and  every  soul  that  ever 
breathed,  and  also  the  real  Dante  Alighieri,  exile  from 
Florence  without  blame,  sustains  as  on  one  thread  the 
medley  of  successive  motives  which  else  might  lack 
poetic  unity,  gives  life  to  a  scheme  which  else  might  be 
too  abstract.  Expanding  to  embrace  the  universe,  con- 
tracting to  a  point  within  one  breast,  the  Commedia 
combines  the  general  and  the  particular  in  an  individ- 
ual commensurate  with  man. 

It  may  be  conjectured  that  Dante,  obeying  the 
scholastic  impulse  of  his  age,  started  from  the  abstract 
or  universal.  Therein  lay  the  reality  of  things,  not  in 
the  particular.  What  has  been  already  quoted  from 
the  letter  to  Can  Grande  justifies  this  supposition. 
He  meant  to  lay  bare  the  scheme  of  the  universe,  as 
understood  by  medieval  Christianity,  and  viewed  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  human  agent.  That  scheme 
presented  itself  in  a  series  of  propositions,  a  logic  or  a 
metaphysic  apprehended  as  truth.  Each  portion  of 
the  poem  was  mapped  out  with  rigorous  accuracy. 
Each  section  illustrated  a  thought,  an  argument,  a 
position.  The  whole  might  be  surveyed  as  a  structure 
of  connected  syllogisms.  To  this  scientific  articulation 
of  its  leading  motives  corresponds  the  architectural 
symmetry,  the  simple  outlines  and  severe  masses  of 
the  Commedia.  The  plan,  however  minute  in  detail, 


80  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

is  comprehended  at  a  glance.  The  harmonies  of  the 
design  are  as  geometrical  as  some  colossal  church 
imagined  by  Bramante.  But  Dante  had  no  intention 
of  re-writing  the  Summa  in  verse.  He  meant  to  be  a 
poet,  using  the  vulgar  speech  of  "that  low  Italy"  in  the 
production  of  an  epic  which  should  rank  on  equal  terms 
with  the  ^Eneid,  and  be  for  modern  Christendom  what 
that  had  been  for  sacred  Rome.  Furthermore  he  had 
it  in  his  heart  to  yield  such  honor  to  Virgil,  "  leader, 
lord,  and  master,"  as  none  had  ever  paid,  and  to  write 
concerning  Beatrice  "  what  had  not  before  been  written 
of  any  woman."  His  poem  was  to  be  the  storehouse 
of  his  personal  experience.  His  love  and  hatred,  his 
admiration  of  greatness  and  his  scorn  for  cowardice, 
his  resentment  of  injury,  his  gratitude  for  service  ren- 
dered, his  political  creed  and  critical  opinions,  the  joy  he 
had  of  nature,  and  the  pain  he  suffered  when  he  walked 
with  men:  all  this  was  to  find  expression  at  right 
seasons  and  in  seemly  order.  Upon  the  severe  frame- 
work of  abstract  truth,  which  forms  the  skeleton  of 
the  Commedia  and  is  the  final  end  of  its  existence, 
Dante  felt  free  to  superimpose  materials  of  inexhaust- 
ible variety.  Following  the  metaphor  of  building 
more  exactly,  we  may  say  that  he  employed  these 
materials  as  the  stones  whereby  he  brought  his  archi- 
tectural design  to  view.  The  abstract  thought  of  the 
Commedia,  tyrannous  and  all-controlling  as  it  is,  could 
not  lay  claim  to  reality  but  for  the  dramatic  episodes 
which  present  it  to  the  intellect  through  the  imagina- 
tion. 

Some  such  clothing  of  abstractions  with  concrete 
images  was  intended  in  the  medieval  theory  of  allegory 


MEDIEVAL  ALLEGORY.  Si 

The  Church  proscribed  the  poets  of  antiquity;  and  it 
had  become  an  axiom  that  poetry  was  the  art  of  lies.1 
Poetry  was  hardly  suffered  to  exist  except  as  a  veil  to 
cloak  some  hidden  doctrine;  and  allegory  presented  a 
middle  way  of  escape,  whereby  the  pleasure  of  art 
could  be  enjoyed  with  a  safe  conscience.  Virgil, 
whom  the  middle  ages  would  not  have  relinquished, 
though  a  General  Council  had  condemned  him, 
received  the  absolution  of  allegorical  interpretation 
Dante,  who  defined  poetry  as  the  art  "  which  publishes 
the  truth  concealed  beneath  a  veil  of  fable,"  frequently 
interrupts  the  story  to  bid  his  readers  note  the  mean- 
ing underneath  the  figures  of  his  verse.  In  composing 
the  Commedia,  he  had  moral  edification  and  scientific 
truth  for  his  end.  The  dramatic,  narrative,  descrip- 
tive, and  lyrical  beauties  of  his  poem  served  to  bring 
into  relief  or  to  shroud  in  appropriate  mystery — since 
allegory  both  elucidates  and  obscures  the  matter  it 
conveys — the  doctrines  he  designed  to  inculcate.  Still 
Dante  stood,  as  a  poet,  at  a  height  so  far  above  his 
age  and  his  own  theories,  that  the  cold  and  numbing 
touch  of  symbolism  rarely  mars  the  interest  of  his 
work.  We  may,  perhaps,  feel  a  certain  confusion 
between  the  personalities  of  Virgil  and  Beatrice  and 
the  thoughts  they  represent,  which  chills  our  sym- 
pathy, raising  a  feeling  of  indignation  when  Virgil  re- 
turns unwept  to  Hell,  and  removing  Beatrice  into  a 
world  of  intangible  ideas.  We  may  find  the  pageant 
at  the  close  of  the  "  Purgatory  "  unattractive;  nor  will 
the  sublimity  of  the  "  Paradise  "  save  the  figures  by 
which  spiritual  meanings  are  here  suggested,  from 

1  See  Revival  of  Learning,  chapter  il- 


8l  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

occasional  grotesqueness.  Thus  much  can  be  con- 
ceded. Dante,  though  born  to  be  the  poet  of  all  time, 
was  still  a  scion  of  his  epoch.  He  could  not  altogether 
escape  the  influences  of  a  misleading  conception.  But, 
apart  from  allegory,  apart  from  didactic  purpose,  the 
Com/media  takes  highest  rank  for  the  episodes,  the  ac- 
tion, the  personal  interest  which  never  flags.  No  poet 
ever  had  a  finer  sense  of  reality,  and  none  commanded 
the  means  of  expressing  it  in  all  its  forms  more  fully. 
Dante's  own  theory  of  symbolism  offered  an  illimitable 
sphere  for  the  exercise  of  his  imagination,  since  it  led 
him  to  give  visible  and  palpable  shape  to  the  thoughts 
of  his  brain.  And  here  it  may  be  noted  that  the  alle- 
gorical heresy  proved  less  pernicious  than  another 
form  of  false  opinion  based  upon  an  ideal  of  classical 
purity  might  have  been.  Since  the  poem  was  to 
present  truth  under  a  cloak  of  metaphor,  it  did  not 
signify  what  figures  were  used.  The  purpose  they 
served,  justified  them.  Therefore  Dante  found  him- 
self at  liberty  to  mingle  satire  with  the  hymns  of 
angels;  to  seek  illustrations  from  vulgar  life  no  less 
than  from  nature  in  her  sublimest  moods;  to  delineate 
the  horrible,  the  painful,  the  grotesque,  and  the 
improbable  with  the  same  sincerity  as  the  beautiful, 
the  charming,  and  the  familiar.  His  dramatic  faculty 
was  exercised  on  themes  so  varied  that  to  classify 
them  is  impossible — on  the  pathos  of  Francesca  and 
the  terror  of  Ugoltno;  the  skirmish  of  the  fiends  in 
Malebolge  and  the  meeting  of  Statius  with  Virgil;  the 
pride  of  Farinata  and  the  penitence  of  Manfred;  the 
agonies  of  Adamo  da  Brescia  and  the  calm  delights  of 
Piccarda  dei  Donati.  He  tells  the  stories  of  Ulysses 


DANTESQUE   KEALJSM.  83 

and  S.  Francis,  describes  the  flight  of  the  Roman 
eagle  and  Cacciaguida's  manhood,  with  equal  energy 
of  brief  but  ineffaceably  impressive  narration.  This 
license  inherent  in  the  use  of  allegory  justified  his 
classing  the  fameless  folk  of  his  own  days  with  the 
heroes  of  Biblical  and  classical  antiquity,  and  permitted 
him  to  mingle  ancient  history  with  his  censure  of 
contemporary  politics.  All  times,  ages,  countries, 
races  of  men  are  alike  before  the  tribunal  of  God's 
justice.  Accordingly,  the  poet  who  had  taken  man's 
moral  nature  for  his  theme,  and  was  bound  by  his 
theory  to  present  this  theme  symbolically,  could  bring 
to  view  a  multitude  of  concrete  persons,  arranged 
(whatever  else  may  issue  from  their  converse  with  the 
protagonist)  according  to  gradations  of  merit  or  de- 
merit. Thus  the  Divine  Comedy,  though  written 
with  a  didactic  object  and  under  the  influence  of 
allegory,  surpasses  every  other  epic  in  the  distinctness 
of  its  motives  and  the  realism  of  their  presentation. 
The  brief  and  pregnant  style  which  scorns  rhetorical 
adornment,  the  accurate  picture  painting  which  aims 
at  vivid  delineation  of  the  thing  to  be  discerned,  har- 
monize with  its  inflexible  ethics,  its  uncompromising 
sincerity,  its  intense  human  feeling. 

The  Commedia  is  too  widely  commensurate  with 
its  theme,  the  Human  Soul,  to  be  described  or  classi- 
fied. The  men  of  its  era  called  it  the  Divine;  and 
this  title  it  has  preserved,  in  spite  of  the  fierce 
censures  of  the  Church  which  it  contains.  They 
called  it  La  Divina  because  of  its  material  doubtless, 
but  also,  we  may  dare  to  think,  because  of  its  un- 
fathomable depth  and  height  and  breadth  of  thought 


84  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

In  course  of  time  chairs  were  established  at  Florence, 
Padua,  and  in  other  cities,  for  its  explanation;  and  the 
labor  of  the  commentator  was  applied  to  it.  That 
labor  has  been  continued  from  Boccaccio's  down  to  our 
own  day;  yet  the  dark  places  of  the  Commedia  have  not 
been  illuminated,  nor  is  learning  likely  to  solve  some 
problems  which  perplex  a  careful  student  of  its  cantos. 
That  matters,  indeed,  but  little;  for  the  main  scope 
and  purpose  of  the  poem  are  plain,  and  its  spirit  is 
such  that  none  who  read  can  fail  to  recognize  it. 

Before  Dante  the  Christian  world  had  no  poet,  and 
Italy  had  no  voice.  The  gift  of  Dante  to  Europe  was 
an  Epic  on  the  one  subject  which  united  the  modern 
nations  in  community  of  interest.  The  gift  of  Dante 
to  his  country  was  a  masterpiece  which  placed  her  on 
a  par  with  Homer's  Hellas  and  with  Virgil's  Rome. 
If  the  first  century  of  Italian  literature  could  have 
produced  three  men  of  the  caliber  of  Dante,  Italy 
would  have  run  her  future  course,  as  she  began, 
abreast  with  ancient  Greece.  That  was  not,  however, 
destined  to  be.  The  very  conditions  of  the  mission 
she  had  to  fulfill  in  the  fourteenth  and  two  following 
centuries,  rendered  the  emergence  of  a  race  of  heroes 
impossible.  Italy  was  about  to  recover  the  past.  Her 
energies  could  not  be  concentrated  on  the  evolution  of 
herself  in  a  new  literature.  To  Dante  succeeded 
Petrarch  and  Boccaccio. 

Petrarch  was  born  at  Arezzo  in  the  year  1304, 
when  his  father,  like  Dante,  and  in  the  same  cause, 
had  been  expelled  from  Florence.  His  youth,  passed 
partly  in  Tuscany  and  partly  at  Avignon,  coincided 
with  the  years  spent  bv  Dante  in  the  composition  of 


THE    AGE    OF  PETRARCH.  85 

the  Commedia.  He  was  a  student  at  Montpellier, 
neglecting  his  law-books  for  Cicero  and  Virgil,  when 
Dante  died  at  Ravenna  in  1321.  During  those  seven- 
teen years  of  Dante's  exile  and  Petrarch's  boyhood,  a 
change  had  passed  over  the  political  scene.  The 
Papacy  was  transferred  from  Rome  to  France.  The 
last  attempts  of  the  German  Emperors  to  vindicate 
their  authority  below  the  Alps  had  failed.  The  Com- 
munes were  yielding  to  anarchy  and  party  feuds,  or 
fast  becoming  the  prey  of  despots.  A  new  age  had 
begun ;  and  of  this  new  age  Petrarch  was  the  repre- 
sentative, as  Dante  had  been  the  poet  of  the  ages 
which  had  passed  away.  Petrarch's  inauguration  of 
the  classical  Revival  has  been  already  described  in  this 
work;  nor  is  it  necessary  to  repeat  the  services  he 
rendered  to  the  cause  of  humanism.1  In  a  volume 
dealing  with  Italian  literature  the  poet  of  the  Canzon- 
iere  must  engage  attention  rather  than  the  resusci- 
tator  of  antique  learning.  It  is  Petrarch's  peculiar 
glory  to  have  held  two  equally  illustrious  places  in 
the  history  of  modern  civilization,  as  the  final  lyrist 
of  chivalrous  love  and  as  the  founder  of  the  Renais- 
sance. Yet  this  double  attitude,  when  we  compare  him 
with  Dante,  constitutes  the  chief  cause  of  his  manifest 
inferiority. 

The  differences  between  Dante's  and  Petrarch's 
education  were  marked,  and  tended  to  accentuate  the 
divergence  of  their  intellectual  and  moral  qualities. 
Dante,  who  lived  until  maturity  within  sight  of  his  bel 

1  See  above,  Revival  of  Learning,  chapter  ii.  I  may  also  refer  to 
an  article  by  me  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  October,  1878,  from  which 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  draw  largely  in  the  following  pages. 


86  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

San  Giovanni,  grew  up  a  Florentine  in  core  and  fiber 
In  his  earliest  work,  the  Vita  Nuovay  there  is  a  home- 
bred purity  of  style,  as  of  something  which  could  only 
have  been  perfected  in  Florence ;  a  beauty  akin  to  that 
of  Giotto's  tower ;  a  perfume  as  of  some  flower  pecu- 
liar to  a  district  whence  it  will  not  bear  transplanting. 
In  his  latest,  the  Paradiso,  he  devotes  one  golden 
canto  to  the  past  prosperity  of  Florence,  another  to 
her  decadence  through  the  corruption  of  her  citizens. 
While  wandering  like  "  the  world's  rejected  guest " 
away  from  that  fair  city  of  his  birth,  the  unrest  of  his 
pilgrimage,  contrasted  with  the  peace  of  earlier  man- 
hood, only  strengthened  the  Florentine  within  him. 
Though  he  traversed  Italy  in  length  and  breadth, 
though  the  Commedia  furnishes  an  epitome  of  her 
landscapes  and  her  local  customs,  describes  her  cities 
and  resumes  her  history,  the  thought  of  national  unity 
was  not  present  to  his  mind.  Italy  remained  for  him 
the  garden  of  the  empire,  the  unruly  colt  whom  Caesar 
should  bestride  and  curb.  Elsewhere  than  in  Flor- 
ence Dante  felt  himself  an  alien.  He  refused  the 
poet's  crown  unless  it  could  be  taken  by  the  font  of 
baptism  upon  the  square  of  Florence.  He  chose 
banishment  with  honor  and  the  stars  of  heaven, 
rather  than  ignominious  entrance  through  the  gates 
he  loved  so  well;  and  yet  from  the  highest  sphere 
of  Paradise  he  turned  his  eyes  down  to  Florence  and 
her  erring  folk : 

Io,  ched  era  al  divino  dall'  umano, 

Ed  all*  eterno  dal  tempo  venuto, 

E  di  Fioronza  in  popol  giusto  e  sano. 

Petrarch,  called   to   perform   another   mission,   had  a 


PETRARCH'S    TRAINING.  87 

different  training.  Brought  up  from  earliest  infancy  in 
exile,  transferred  from  Tuscany  to  France,  deprived 
of  civic  rights  and  disengaged  from  the  duties  of  a 
burgher  in  those  troublous  times,  he  surveyed  the  world 
from  his  study  and  judged  its  affairs  with  the  impar- 
tiality of  a  philosopher.  Without  a  city,  without  a 
home,  without  a  family,  consecrated  to  the  priesthood 
and  absorbed  in  literary  interests,  he  spent  his  life  in 
musings  at  Vaucluse  or  in  the  splendid  hospitalities  of 
the  Lombard  Courts.  Through  all  his  wanderings  he 
was  a  visitor,  the  citizen  of  no  republic,  but  the  free- 
man of  the  City  of  the  Spirit.  Without  exaggeration 
he  might  have  chosen  for  his  motto  the  phrase  of 
Marcus  Aurelius:  "  I  will  not  say  dear  city  of  Cecrops 
but  dear  city  of  God!"  Avignon,  where  his  intellect 
was  formed  in  youth,  had  become  through  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Popes  the  capital  of  Christendom,  the 
only  center  of  political  and  ecclesiastical  activity  where 
an  ideal  of  universal  culture  could  arise.  Itself  in 
exile,  the  Papacy  still  united  the  modern  nations  by  a 
common  bond;  but  its  banishment  from  Rome  was 
the  sign  of  a  new  epoch,  when  the  hegemony  of  civili- 
zation should  be  transferred  from  the  Church  to  secular 
control.  In  this  way  Petrarch  was  enabled  to  shape  a 
conception  of  humanism  which  left  the  middle  age  be- 
hind; and  when  his  mind  dwelt  on  Italy  at  a  distance, 
he  could  think  of  her  as  the  great  Italic  land,  inheritor 
of  Rome,  mother  of  a  people  destined  to  be  one,  born 
to  rule,  or  if  not  rule,  at  least  to  regenerate  the  world 
through  wisdom.  From  his  lips  we  hear  of  Florence 
nothing;  but  for  the  first  time  the  passionate  cry  of 
Italia  mia  the  appeal  of  an  Italian  who  recognized  his 


88  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

race,  yet  had  no  local  habitation  on  the  sacred  soil 
vibrates  in  his  oratorical  canzoni.  Petrarch's  dreams 
of  a  united  Italy  and  a  resuscitated  Roman  republic 
were  hardly  less  visionary  than  Dante's  ideal  of  uni- 
versal monarchy  with  Rome  for  the  seat  of  empire. 
Yet  in  his  lyrics  the  true  conception  of  Italy,  one 
intellectually  in  spite  of  political  discord  and  foreign 
oppression,  the  real  and  indestructible  unity  of  the 
nation  in  a  spirit  destined  to  control  the  future  of  the 
human  race,  came  suddenly  to  consciousness.  There 
was  an  out-cry  in  their  passion-laden  strophes  which 
gathered  volume  as  the  years  rolled  over  Italy,  until 
at  last,  in  her  final  prostration  beneath  Spanish  Austria, 
they  seemed  less  poems  than  authentic  prophecies. 

Thus  while  Dante  remained  a  Florentine,  Petrarch 
was  the  first  Italian.  Nor  is  it  insignificant  that 
whereas  Dante  refused  the  poet's  crown  unless  he 
could  place  the  laurels  on  his  head  in  Florence, 
Petrarch  ascended  the  Capitol  among  the  plaudits  of 
the  Romans,  and,  in  the  absence  of  Pope  and  Em- 
peror, received  his  wreath  from  the  Senator  Roman  us. 
Dante's  renunciation  and  Petrarch's  acceptance  of  this 
honor  were  equally  appropriate.  Dante,  as  was  fit- 
ting for  a  man  of  his  era,  looked  still  to  the  Commune. 
Petrarch's  coronation  on  the  Capitol  was  the  outward 
sign  that  the  age  of  the  Communes  was  over,  that 
culture  was  destined  to  be  cosmopolitan,  and  that  the 
Eternal  City,  symbolizing  the  imperishable  empire  of 
the  intellect,  was  now  the  proper  throne  of  men 
marked  out  to  sway  the  world  by  thoughts  and  written 
words. 

In    Petrarch   the   particular   is   superseded   by   the 


GENERALIZING    TENDENCY.  89 

universal.  The  citizen  is  sunk  in  the  man.  The 
political  prejudices  of  the  partisan  are  conspicuous  by 
absence.  His  language  has  lost  all  trace  of  dialect. 
He  writes  Italian,  special  to  no  district,  though  Tuscan 
in  its  source;  and  his  verse  fixes  the  standard  of 
poetic  diction  for  all  time  in  Italy.  These  changes 
mark  an  important  stage  in  literature  emerging  from 
its  origins,  and  account  for  Petrarch's  unequaled 
authority  during  the  next  three  centuries.  Dante's 
Epic  is  classical  because  of  its  vivid  humanity  and  in- 
destructible material;  but  its  spirit  is  medieval  and  its 
details  are  strictly  localized.  Petrarch's  outlook  over 
the  world  and  life  is,  in  form  at  least,  less  confined  to 
the  limitations  of  his  age.  Consequently  the  students 
of  a  period  passing  rapidly  beyond  the  medieval  cycle 
of  ideas,  found  no  bar  between  his  nature  and  their 
sympathies. 

In  his  treatment  of  chivalrous  love  we  may  notice 
this  tendency  to  generalization.  The  material  trans- 
mitted from  the  troubadours,  handled  with  affectation 
by  the  Sicilians,  philosophized  by  the  Florentines,  loses 
transient  and  specific  quality  in  the  Canzoniere.  It 
takes  rank  at  last  among  simply  human  emotions;  and, 
though  it  has  not  lost  a  certain  medieval  tincture,  the 
Canzoniere  rather  than  the  Vita  Nuova,  the  work  of 
distinguished  rather  than  of  supreme  genius,  has  on 
this  account  been  understood  and  appropriated  by  all 
lovers  in  all  ages  and  in  every  land.  Petrarch's  verses, 
to  use  Shelley's  words,  "are  as  spells,  which  unseal  the 
inmost  enchanted  fountains  of  the  delight  which  is  the 
grief  of  love."  And  while  we  admit  that  "  Dante  under 
stood  the  secrets  of  love  even  more  than  Petrarch,"  there 


90  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

is  no  doubt  that  the  Canzoniere  strikes  a  note  which 
vibrates  more  universally  than  the  Vita  Nuova.  The 
majority  of  men  cannot  but  prefer  the  comprehensive 
to  the  intense  expression  of  personal  emotion. 

Death  rendered  Beatrice's  apotheosis  conceivable; 
and  Dante  may  be  said  to  have  rediscovered  the 
Platonic  mystery,  whereby  love  ^  is  an  initiation  into 
the  secrets  of  the  spiritual  world.  It  was  the  intuition 
of  a  sublime  nature  into  the  essence  of  pure  impersonal 
enthusiasm.  It  was  an  exaltation  of  womanhood 
similar  to  that  attempted  less  adequately  by  Shelley 
in  Epipsychidion.  It  was  a  real  instinct  like  that 
which  pervades  the  poetry  of  Michelangelo,  and  which 
sustains  some  men  even  in  our  prosaic  age.  Still  there 
remained  an  ineradicable  unsubstantially  in  Dante's 
point  of  view,  when  tested  by  the  common  facts  of  feel- 
ing. His  idealism  was  too  far  removed  from  ordinary 
experience  to  take  firm  hold  upon  the  modern  mind. 
In  proportion  as  Beatrice  personified  abstractions,  she 
ceased  to  be  a  woman  even  for  her  lover;  nor  was  it 
possible,  except  by  diminishing  her  individuality,  to 
regard  her  as  a  symbol  of  the  universal.  She  passed 
from  the  sphere  of  the  human  into  the  divine;  and 
though  her  face  was  still  beautiful,  it  was  the  face  of 
Science  rather  than  of  one  we  love.  There  was  even 
too  little  alloy  of  earth  in  Dante's  passion  for  Beatrice 

Petrarch's  love  for  Laura  was  of  a  different  type. 
The  unrest  of  earthly  desire,  for  ever  thwarted  but 
recurring  with  imperious  persistence,  and  the  rebellion 
of  the  conscience  against  emotions  which  the  lover 
recognized  as  lawless,  broke  his  peace.  It  is  true 
that,  using  the  language  of  the  earlier  poets  and  obey- 


PETRARCH'S   LOVE.  91 

ing  a  sanguine  mood  of  his  own  mind,  he  from  time  tc 
time  spoke  of  Laura  as  of  one  who  led  his  soul  to  God. 
But  his  si.ncerest  utterances  reveal  the  discord  of  a 
heart  divided  between  duty  and  inclination,  the  melan- 
choly of  a  man  who  knows  himself  the  prey  of  warring 
powers.  His  love  for  Laura  seemed  an  error  and  a 
sin,  because  it  clashed  with  an  ascetic  impulse  which 
had  never  been  completely  blunted.  In  his  Hymn  to 
the  Virgin  he  referred  to  this  passion  as  the  Medusa 
that  had  turned  his  better  self  to  stone: 

Medusa  e  1'  error  mio  m'  han  fatto  un  sas  so 
D'  umor  van  stillante. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  De  Remediis  utriusque 
Fortunes,  where  the  lyrist  of  chivalrous  love  pours 
such  contempt  on  women  as  his  friend  Boccaccio  might 
have  envied.  In  the  Secretum,  again,  he  describes  his 
own  emotion  as  a  torment  from  which  he  had  vainly 
striven  to  emancipate  himself  by  solitude,  by  journeys, 
by  distractions,  and  by  obstinate  studies.  In  truth,  he 
rarely  alludes  to  the  great  passion  of  his  life  without  a 
strange  blending  of  tenderness  and  sore  regret.  Here- 
in he  proved  himself  not  only  a  true  child  of  his  age, 
but  also  the  precursor  of  the  modern  world.  While 
he  was  still  bound  by  the  traditions  of  medieval  as- 
ceticism, a  Christian  no  less  devout  and  only  less  firm 
than  Dante,  his  senses  and  his  imagination,  stirred 
possibly  by  contact  with  classic  literature,  rebelled 
against  the  mysticism  of  the  Florentine  School.  This 
rebellion,  but  dimly  apprehended  by  the  poet  himself, 
and  complicated  with  the  yearnings  of  a  deeply  re- 
ligious nature  after  pjrity  of  thought  and  deed,  gave 
its  supreme  strength  and  beauty  to  his  verse.  The 


9*  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Canzoniere  is  not  merely  the  poetry  of  love  but  the 
poetry  of  conflict  also.  The  men  of  the  Renaissance 
overleaped  the  conflict,  and  satisfied  themselves  with 
empty  idealizations  of  sensual  desire.  But  modern 
men  have  returned  to  Petrarch's  point  of  view  and 
found  an  echo  of  their  own  divided  spirit  in  his  poetry. 
He  marks  the  transition  from  a  medieval  to  a  modern 
mood,  the  passage  from  Cino  and  Guido  to  Werther 
and  Rousseau. 

That  Laura  was  a  real  woman,  and  that  Petrarch's 
worship  of  her  was  unfeigned;  that  he  adored  her  with 
the  senses  and  the  heart  as  well  as  with  the  head;  but 
that  this  love  was  at  the  same  time  more  a  mood 
of  the  imagination,  a  delicate  disease,  a  cherished 
wound,  to  which  he  constantly  recurred  as  the  most 
sensitive  and  lively  wellspring  of  poetic  fancy,  than  a 
downright  and  impulsive  passion,  may  be  clearly  seen 
in  the  whole  series  of  his  poems  and  his  autobiographical 
confessions.  Laura  appears  to  have  treated  him  with 
the  courtesy  of  a  somewhat  distant  acquaintance,  who 
was  aware  of  his  homage  and  was  flattered  by  it  But 
her  lover  enjoyed  no  privileges  of  intimacy,  and  it  may 
be  questioned  whether,  if  Petrarch  could  by  any  accident 
have  made  her  his  own,  the  fruition  of  her  love  would 
not  have  been  a  serious  interruption  to  the  happiness 
of  his  life.  He  first  saw  her  in  the  church  of  S.  Claire, 
at  Avignon,  on  April  6,  1327.  She  passed  from  this 
world  on  April  6,  1348.  These  two  dates  are  the 
two  turning-points  of  Petrarch's  life.  The  interval  of 
twenty-one  years,  when  Laura  trod  the  earth,  and  her 
lover  in  all  his  wanderings  paid  his  orisons  to  her  at 
morning,  evening,  and  noonday,  and  passed  his  nights  in 


LIFE   AND    DEATH  OF  LAURA.  93 

dreams  of  that  fair  form  which  never  might  be  his,  was 
the  storm  and  stress  period  of  his  checkered  career. 
There  is  an  old  Greek  proverb  that  "  to  desire  the  im- 
possible is  a  malady  of  the  soul."  With  this  malady 
in  its  most  incurable  form  the  poet  was  stricken ;  and. 
instead  of  seeking  cure,  he  nursed  his  sickness  and  de- 
lighted in  the  discord  of  his  spirit.  From  that  discord 
he  wrought  the  harmonies  of  his  sonnets  and  canzoni. 
That  malady  made  him  the  poet  of  all  men  who  have 
found  in  their  emotions  a  dreamland  more  wonderful 
and  pregnant  with  delight  than  in  the  world  which  we 
call  real.  After  Laura's  death  his  love  was  tranquil- 
ized  to  a  sublimer  music.  The  element  of  discord  had 
passed  out  of  it ;  and  just  because  its  object  was  now 
physically  unattainable,  it  grew  in  purity  and  power. 
The  sensual  alloy  which,  however  spiritualized,  had 
never  ceased  to  disturb  his  soul,  was  purged  from  his 
still  vivid  passion.  Laura  in  heaven  looked  down 
upon  him  from  her  station  mid  the  saints;  and  her 
poet  could  indulge  the  dream  that  now  at  last  she 
pitied  him,  that  she  was  waiting  for  him  with  angelic 
eyes  of  love,  and  telling  him  to  lose  no  time,  but  set 
his  feet  upon  the  stairs  that  led  to  God  and  her.  The 
romance  finds  its  ultimate  apotheosis  in  that  tran- 
scendent passage  of  the  Trionfo  delta  Morte  which 
describes  her  death  and  his  own  vision.  Throughout 
the  whole  course  of  this  labyrinthine  love-lament,  sus- 
tained for  forty  years  on  those  few  notes  so  subtly 
modulated,  from  the  first  sonnet  on  his  primo  giavenile 
errore  to  the  last  line  of  her  farewell,  tu  starai  in 
terra  senza  me  gran  tempo,  Laura  grows  in  vividness 
before  us.  She  only  becomes  a  real  woman  in  death, 


94  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

because  she  was  for  Petrarch  always  an  ideal,  and  in 
the  ideal  world  beyond  the  tomb  he  is  more  sure  of 
her  than  when  "  the  fair  veil "  of  flesh  was  drawn  be 
tween  her  and  his  yearning. 

Petrarch  succeeded  in  bringing  the  old  theme  of 
chivalrous  love  back  from  the  philosophizing  mysticism 
of  the  Florentines  to  simple  experience.  He  forms  a 
link  between  their  transcendental  science  and  the 
positive  romance  of  the  Decameron,  between  the  spirit 
of  the  middle  ages  and  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance. 
Guided  by  his  master,  Cino  da  Pistoja,  the  least 
metaphysical  and  clearest  of  his  immediate  prede- 
cessors, Petrarch  found  the  right  artistic  via  media; 
and  perhaps  we  may  attribute  something  to  that 
double  education  which  placed  him  between  the  in- 
fluences of  the  Tuscan  lyrists  and  the  troubadours  of 
his  adopted  country.  At  any  rate  he  returned  from 
the  allegories  of  the  Florentine  poets  to  the  directness 
of  chivalrous  emotion;  but  he  treated  the  original 
motive  with  a  greater  richness  and  a  more  idealizing 
delicacy  than  his  Provencal  predecessors.  The  mar- 
velous instruments  of  the  Italian  Sonnet  and  Canzone 
were  in  his  hands,  and  he  knew  how  to  draw  from 
them  a  purer  if  not  a  grander  melody  than  either 
Guido  or  Dante.  The  best  work  of  the  Florentines 
required  a  commentary;  and  the  structure  of  their  verse, 
like  its  content,  was  scientific  rather  than  artistic 
Petrarch  could  publish  his  Canzoniere  without  ex- 
planatory notes.  He  laid  his  heart  bare  to  the  world, 
and  every  man  who  had  a  heart  might  understand  his 
language.  Between  the  subject-matter  and  the  verbal 
expression  there  lay  no  intervening  veil  of  mystic 


THE    ARTIST  IN  PETRARCH.  95 

meaning.  The  form  had  become  correspondingly  more 
clear  and  perfect,  more  harmonious  in  its  proportions, 
more  immediate  in  musical  effects.  In  a  word,  Pet- 
rarch was  the  first  to  open  a  region  where  art  might  be 
free,  and  to  find  for  the  heart's  language  utterance 
direct  and  limpid. 

This  was  his  great  achievement.  The  forms  he 
used  were  not  new.  The  subject-matter  he  handled 
was  given  to  him.  But  he  brought  both  form  and 
subject  closer  to  the  truth,  exercising  at  the  same  time 
an  art  which  had  hitherto  been  unconceived  in  subtlety, 
and  which  has  never  since  been  equaled.  If  Dante 
was  the  first  great  poet,  Petrarch  was  the  first  true 
artist  of  Italian  literature.  It  was,  however,  impossible 
that  Petrarch  should  overleap  at  one  bound  all  the 
barriers  of  the  middle  ages.  His  Laura  has  still 
something  of  the  earlier  ideality  adhering  to  her.  She 
stands  midway  between  the  Beatrice  of  Dante  and  the 
women  of  Boccaccio.  She  is  not  so  much  a  woman 
with  a  character  and  personality,  as  woman  in  the 
general,  la  femme,  personified  and  made  the  object  of 
a  poet's  reveries.  Though  every  detail  of  her  physical 
perfections,  with  the  single  and  striking  exception  of 
her  nose,  is  carefully  recorded,  it  is  not  easy  to  form  a 
definite  picture  even  of  her  face  and  shape.  Of  her 
inner  nature  we  hear  only  the  vaguest  generalities. 
She  sits  like  a  lovely  model  in  the  midst  of  a  beautiful 
landscape,  like  one  of  our  Burne-Jones's  women  who 
incarnate  a  mood  of  feeling  while  they  lack  the  fullness 
of  personality.  The  thought  of  her  'pervades  the 
valley  of  Vaucluse;  the  perfume  of  her  memory  is  in 
the  air  we  breathe.  But  if  we  met  her,  we  should  find 


96  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

it  hard  to  recognize  her;  and  if  she  spoke,  we  should 
not  understand  that  it  was  Laura. 

Petrarch  had  no  strong  objective  faculty.  Just  as 
he  failed  to  bring  Laura  vividly  before  us,  until  she  had 
by  death  become  a  part  of  his  own  spiritual  substance, 
so  he  failed  to  depict  things  as  he  saw  them.  The 
pictures  etched  in  three  or  four  lines  of  the  Purgatorio 
may  be  sought  for  vainly  in  his  Rime.  That  his  love 
of  nature  was  intense,  there  is,  no  doubt.  The  solitary 
of  Vaucluse,  the  pilgrim  of  Mont  Ventoux,  had 
reached  a  point  of  sensibility  to  natural  scenery  far  in 
advance  of  his  age.  But  when  he  came  to  express 
this  passion  for  beauty,  he  was  satisfied  with  giving 
the  most  perfect  form  to  the  emotion  stirred  in  his  own 
subjectivity.  Instead  of  scenes,  he  delineates  the 
moods  suggested  by  them.  He  makes  the  streams 
and  cliffs  and  meadows  of  Vaucluse  his  confidants. 
He  does  not  lose  himself  in  contemplation  of  the 
natural  object,  though  we  feel  that  this  self  found  its 
freest  breathing-space,  its  most  delightful  company,  in 
the  society  of  hill  and  vale.  He  never  cares  to  paint 
a  landscape,  but  contents  himself  with  such  delicate 
touches  and  such  cunning  combinations  of  words  as 
'may  suggest  a  charm  in  the  external  world.  At  this 
point  the  humanist,  preoccupied  with  man  as  his  main 
subject,  meets  the  poet  in  Petrarch.  What  is  lost,  too, 
in  the  precision  of  delineation,  is  gained  in  univer- 
sality. The  Canzoniere  reminds  us  of  no  single  spot; 
wherever  there  are  clear  fresh  rills  and  hanging  moun- 
tains, the  lover  walks  with  Petrarch  by  his  side. 

If  the  poet's  dominant  subjectivity  weakened  his 
grasp  upon  external  things,  it  made  him  supreme  in 


PASSAGE    TO   BOCCACCIO.  97 

self-portraiture.  Every  mood  of  passion  is  caught  and 
fixed  precisely  in  his  verse.  The  most  evanescent 
shades  of  feeling  are  firmly  set  upon  the  exquisite 
picture.  Each  string  of  Love's  many-chorded  lyre  is 
touched  with  a  vigorous  hand.  The  fluctuations  of 
hope,  despair,  surprise ;  the  "  yea  and  nay  twinned  in 
a  single  breath ; "  the  struggle  of  conflicting  aspirations 
in  a  heart  drawn  now  to  God  and  now  to  earth ;  the 
quiet  resting-places  of  content;  the  recrudescence  of 
the  ancient  smart;  the  peace  of  absence,  when  longing 
is  luxury;  the  agony  of  presence,  adding  fire  to  fire 
— all  this  is  rendered  with  a  force  so  striking,  in  a 
style  so  monumental,  that  the  Canzoniere  may  still  be 
called  the  Introduction  to  the  Book  of  Love.  Thus, 
when  Petrarch's  own  self  was  the  object,  his  hand  was 
steady;  his  art  failed  not  in  modeling  the  image 
into  roundness. 

Dante  brought  the  universe  into  his  poem.  But 
"  the  soul  of  man,  too,  is  a  universe : "  and  of  this 
inner  microcosm  Petrarch  was  the  poet.  It  remained 
for  Boccaccio,  the  third  in  the  triumvirate,  to  treat 
of  common  life  with  art  no  less  developed.  From 
Beatrice  through  Laura  to  La  Fiammetta;  from  the 
Divine  Comedy  through  the  Canzoniere  to  the  Deca- 
meron; from  the  world  beyond  the  grave  through 
the  world  of  feeling  to  the  world  in  which  we  play  our 
puppet  parts ;  from  the  mystic  terza  rima,  through  the 
stately  lyric  stanzas,  to  Protean  prose — such  was  the 
rapid  movement  of  Italian  art  within  the  brief  space 
of  some  fifty  years. 

Giovanni  Boccaccio  was  born  in  1313,  the  eleventh 
year  of  Dante's  exile,  the  first  of  Petrarch's  residence 


98  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

at  Avignon.  His  grandfather  belonged  originally  to 
Certaldo;  but  he  removed  to  Florence  and  received 
the  rights  of  burghership  among  those  countryfolk 
whom  Dante  reckoned  the  corrupters  of  her  ancient 
commonwealth l : 

Ma  la  cittadinanza,  ch'  &  or  mista 
Di  Campi  e  di  Certaldo  e  di  Figghine, 
Pura  vedeasi  nell'  ultimo  artista. 

Certaldo  was  a  village  of  Valdelsa,  famous  for  its 
onions.  This  explains  the  rebuff  which  the  author  of 
the  Decameron  received  from  a  Florentine  lady,  whom 
he  afterwards  satirized  in  the  Corbaccio :  "  Go  back 
to  grub  your  onion-beds,  and  leave  gentlewomen 
alone ! "  Boccaccio  was  neither  born  in  wedlock  nor 
yet  of  pure  Italian  blood.  His  mother  was  a  French- 
woman, with  whom  his  father  made  acquaintance  dur- 
ing a  residence  on  business  at  Paris.  These  facts  de- 
serve to  be  noted,  since  they  bear  upon  the  temper  of 
his  mind  and  on  the  quality  of  his  production. 

It  has  been  observed  that  the  three  main  elements 
of  Florentine   society — the  popolo   vecchio,    or    nobles 
who  acquiesced  in  the  revolution  of  1282;  the  popol 
grasso,  or  burghers  occupying  a  middle  rank  in   the 
city,  who  passed  the   Ordinances   of   1293;    and   the 
popolo  minuto,  or  artisans  and  contadini  admitted  to  the 
franchise,  who  came  to  the  front  between    1343  anc 
1378 — are  severally  represented  by   Dante,   Petrarch, 
and  Boccaccio.2     So  rapid  are  the  political  and  intellec- 
tual mutations  in  a  little  state  like  Florence,  where  th< 
vigor  of  popular  life  and  the  vivacity  of  genius  be; 

1  Par.  xvi. 

*  Carducci,  "  Dello  Svolgimento  della  Letteratura  Nazionale: ' 
Letterari  (Livorno,  1874),  P-  6o« 


THE    BOURGEOIS.  99 

no  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  community,  that  within 
the  short  span  of  fifty  years  the  center  of  power  may 
be  transferred  from  an  aristocracy  to  the  proletariate, 
and  the  transition  in  art  and  literature  from  the  Middle 
Age  to  the  Renaissance  may  not  only  be  accomplished 
but  copiously  illustrated  in  detail.1 

Boccaccio  was  the  typical  Italian  bourgeois,  the 
representative  of  a  class  who  finally  determined  the 
Renaissance.  His  prose  and  poetry  contain  in  germ 
the  various  species  which  were  perfected  during  that 
period.  Studying  him,  we  study  in  its  immaturity 
the  spirit  of  the  next  two  centuries.  He  was  the 
first  to  substitute  a  literature  of  the  people  for  the 
literature  of  the  learned  classes  and  the  aristocracy. 
He  freed  the  natural  instincts  from  ascetic  inter- 
dictions and  the  mysticism  of  the  transcendental 
school.  He  exposed  the  shams  of  chivalrous  romance 
and  the  hypocrisies  of  monkery  with  ridicule  more 
deadly  than  satire  or  invective.  He  brought  realism 
in  art  and  letters  back  to  honor  by  delineating  the 
world  as  he  found  it — sensual,  base,  comic,  ludicrous, 
pathetic,  tender,  cruel — in  all  its  crudities  and  contra- 
dictions. He  replaced  the  abstractions  of  the  allegory 
by  concrete  fact.  He  vindicated  the  claims  of  appetite 
and  sensuous  enjoyment  against  ideal  aspirations  and 
the  scruples  of  a  faith  -  tormented  conscience.  He 
taught  his  fellow-countrymen  that  a  life  of  studious 
indifference  was  preferable  to  the  strife  of  factions  and 
the  din  of  battle-fields. 

Boccaccio  did  not  act  consciously  and  with  fixed 

1  The  Divine  Comedy  was  probably  begun  in  earnest  about  1303. 
and  the  Decameron  was  published  in  1353. 


100  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

purpose  to  these  ends.  He  was  rather  the  spokesman 
of  his  age  and  race — the  sign  in  literature  that  Italian 
society  had  entered  upon  a  new  phase,  and  that  the 
old  order  was  passing  away.  If  the  Decameron  seemed 
to  shake  the  basis  of  morality;  if  it  gained  the  name  of 
II  Principe  Galeotto  or  the  Pandar;  if  it  was  denounced 
as  the  corrupter  of  the  multitude;  this  meant,  not  that 
its  author  had  a  sinister  intention,  but  that  the  medi- 
eval fabric  was  already  sapped,  and  that  the  people 
whom  Boccaccio  wrote  to  please  were  disillusioned  of 
their  previous  ideals.  The  honest  easy-going-  man, 
Giovanni  della  Tranquillita,  as  he  was  called,  painted 
what  he  saw  and  made  himself  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
men  around  him.1 

For  the  work  he  had  to  do,  he  was  admirably  fitted 
by  nature  and  education.  He  combined  the  blood  of 
a  Florentine  tradesman  and  a  Parisian  grisette.  He 
had  but  little  learning  in  his  youth,  and  was  the  first 
great  Italian  writer  who  had  not  studied  at  Bologna. 
His  early  manhood  was  passed  in  commerce  at 
Naples,  where  he  gained  access  to  the  dissolute  Court 
of  Joan,  and  made  love  to  her  ladies.  At  his  father's 
request  he  applied  himself  for  a  short  while  to  legal 

1  Boccaccio  was  called  Giovanni  della  Tranquillita  partly  in  scorn. 
He  resented  it,  as  appears  from  a  letter  to  Zanobi  della  Strada  ( Op.  Volg. 
vol.  xvii.  p.  101),  because  it  implied  a  love  ot  Court  delights  and  parasitical 
idleness.  In  that  letter  he  amply  defends  himself  from  such  imputations, 
showing  that  he  led  the  life  of  a  poor  and  contented  student.  Yet  the 
nickname  was  true  in  a  deeper  sense,  as  is  proved  by  the  very  argu- 
ments of  his  apology,  and  confirmed  by  the  description  of  his  life  at  Cer- 
taldo  remote  from  civic  duties  (Letter  to  Pino  de"  Rossi,  ibid.  p.  35),  as 
well  as  by  the  tragi-comic  narrative  of  his  discomfort  at  Naples  (Letter 
to  Messer  Francesco,  ibid.  pp.  37-87).  Not  only  in  these  passages,  but 
in  all  his  works  he  paints  himself  a  comfort-loving  bourgeois,  whose 
heart  was  set  on  his  books,  whose  ideal  of  enjoyment  was  a  satisfied 
passion  ot  a  sensual  kind. 


BOCCACCIO'S   SPIRIT.  IO1 

studies;  but  he  does  not  appear  to  have  practiced  as  a 
lawyer  in  real  earnest.  Literature  very  early  became 
the  passion,  the  one  serious  and  ennobling  enthusiasm 
of  his  life.  We  have  already  seen  him  at  the  tomb  of 
Virgil,  vowing  to  devote  his  powers  to  the  sacred 
Muses;  and  we  know  what  services  he  rendered  to 
humanism  by  his  indefatigable  energy  in  the  acquisi- 
tion and  diffusion  of  miscellaneous  learning.1  This  is 
not  the  place  to  treat  of  Boccaccio's  scholarship.  Yet 
it  may  be  said  that,  just  as  his  philosophy  of  life  was 
the  philosophy  of  a  jovial  and  sensuous  plebeian,  so 
his  conception  of  literature  lacked  depth  and  greatness. 
He  repeated  current  theories  about  the  dependence  of 
poetry  on  truth,  the  dignity  of  allegory,  the  sacredness 
of  love,  the  beauty  of  honor.  But  his  own  work 
showed  how  little  he  had  appropriated  these  ideas. 
As  a  student,  a  poet,  and  a  man,  he  lived  upon  a 
lower  plane  of  thought  than  Petrarch;  and  when  he 
left  the  concrete  for  the  abstract,  his  penetrative 
insight  failed  him. 

From  this  point  of  view  Boccaccio's  Life  of  Dante 
is  instructive.  It  is  crammed  with  heterogeneous 
erudition.  It  bristles  with  citations  and  opinions 
learned  by  rote.  It  reveals  the  heartiest  reverence 
for  all  things  reckoned  worthy  in  the  realm  of  in- 
tellect. The  admiration  for  the  divine  poet  ex- 
pressed in  it  is  sincere  and  ungrudging.  Yet  this 
book  betrays  an  astonishing  want  of  sympathy  with 
Dante,  and  transforms  the  sublime  romance  of  the 
Vita  Nuova  into  a  commonplace  novella.  Dante 
told  the  world  how  he  first  felt  love  for  Beatrice  at 

1  See  above,  vol  ii.  Revival  of  Learning,  chap.  ii.  pp.  87-98. 


102  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

the  age  of  nine.  His  biographer  is  at  a  loss  to 
understand  this  miracle.  He  supposes  that  the  sweet 
season  of  May,  the  good  wines  and  delicate  dishes  of 
the  Portinari  banquet,  all  the  sensuous  delights  of  a 
Florentine  festival,  combined  to  make  the  boy  pre- 
maturely a  man. l  Dante  called  Beatrice  "  youngest  of 
the  angels."  Boccaccio  draws  a  lively  picture  of  an 
angel  in  the  flesh,  as  he  imagined  her;  and  in  his 
portrait  there  is  far  less  of  the  angelic  than  the  carnal 
nature  visible.  This  he  does  in  perfect  good  faith, 
with  the  heartfelt  desire  to  exalt  Dante  above  all 
poets,  and  to  spread  abroad  the  truth  of  his  illustrious 
life.  But  the  hero  of  Renaissance  literature  was 
incapable  of  comprehending  the  real  feeling  of  the 
man  he  worshiped.  Between  him  and  the  enthu- 
siasms of  the  middle  ages  a  nine-fold  Styx  already 
poured  its  waves. 

Boccaccio's  noblest  quality  was  the  recognition  of 
intellectual  power.  It  was  this  cult  of  great  men,  if 
we  may  trust  Filippo  Villani,  which  first  decided  him 
to  follow  literature.2  His  devotion  to  the  memory  of 
Dante,  and  his  frank  confession  of  inferiority  to 
Petrarch,  whom  he  loved  and  served  through  twenty 
years  of  that  exacting  poet's  life,  are  equally  sin- 
cere and  beautiful.  These  feelings  inspired  some  of 
his  finest  poems,  and  penetrated  the  autobiographical 
passages  of  his  minor  works  with  a  delicacy  that 
endears  the  man  to  us.3  No  less  candid  was  his 

i  Boccaccio,  Opere  Volgari  (Firenze,  1833),  vol.  xv.  p.  18. 

«  Revival  of  Learning,  p.  88. 

»  I  may  specially  refer  to  the  passages  of  the  Amorosa  Visions  (cap 
v.  vi.)  where  he  meets  with  Dante,  "  gloria  delle  muse  mentre  visse, 
"il  maestro  dal  qua!'  io  tengo  ogni  ben,"  "  il  Signor  d'  ogni  savere; 


DEVOTION   TO  ART.  103 

worship  of  beauty — not  beauty  of  an  intellectual  or 
ideal  order,  but  sensuous  and  real — the  beauty  which 
inspired  the  artists  and  the  poets  of  the  following 
centuries.  Nor  has  any  writer  of  any  age  been  gifted 
with  a  stronger  faculty  for  its  expression.  From  this 
service  of  the  beautiful  he  derived  the  major  impulse 
of  his  activity  as  an  artist.  If  he  lacked  moral  great- 
ness, if  he  was  deficient  in  philosophical  depth  and 
religious  earnestness,  his  devotion  to  art  was  serious, 
intense,  profound,  absorbing.  He  discharged  his  du- 
ties as  a  citizen  with  easy  acquiescence,  but  no  stern 
consciousness  of  patriotic  purpose.  He  conformed  to 
the  Church,  and  allowed  himself  in  old  age  to  be 
frightened  into  a  kind  of  half- repentance.  But  the 
homage  he  rendered  to  art  was  of  a  very  different 
and  more  exacting  nature.  With  his  best  energies 
he  labored  to  make  himself,  at  least  in  this  sphere, 
perfect.  How  amply  he  succeeded  must  be  acknowl- 
edged by  all  men  who  have  read  the  Decameron,  and 
who  have  seen  that  here  Boccaccio  forms  the  legends 
of  all  ages  and  all  lands  into  one  harmonious  whole, 
brings  a  world  of  many-sided  human  interest  and 
varied  beauty  out  of  the  chaos  of  medieval  materials, 
finishing  every  detail  with  love,  inspiring  each  particle 
with  life,  and  setting  the  daedal  picture  of  society  in 
a  framework  of  delicate  romance.  The  conception 
and  the  execution  of  this  masterpiece  of  literature  are 
equally  artistic.  If  the  phrase  "  art  for  art "  can  be 
used  in  speaking  of  one  who  was  unconscious  of  the 

also  to  the  sonnets  on  Dante,  and  that  most  beautiful  sonnet  addressed 
fo  Petrarch  after  death  at  peace  in  heaven  with  Cino  and  Dante.  See 
the  Rime  (Op.  Volg.  vol.  xvi.),  sonnets  8,  60,  97,  108. 


104  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

theory  it  implies,  Boccaccio  may  be  selected  as  the 
typical  artist  for  art's  sake.  Within  the  sphere  of 
his  craft,  he  is  impassioned,  enthusiastic,  sincere,  pro- 
found. His  attitude  with  regard  to  all  else  is  one  of 
amused  or  curious  indifference,  of  sensuous  enjoy- 
ment, of  genial  ridicule,  of  playful  cynicism. 

Boccaccio  was  a  bourgeois  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury; but  his  character,  as  stamped  on  the  Decameron, 
was  common  to  Italy  during  the  next  two  hundred 
years.  The  whole  book  glows  with  the  joyousness  of 
a  race  discarding  dreams  for  realities,  scorning  the  ter- 
rors of  a  bygone  creed,  reveling  in  nature's  liberty, 
proclaiming  the  empire  of  the  senses  with  a  frankness 
which  passes  over  into  license.  In  Boccaccio,  the 
guiding  genius  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  arrives  at 
consciousness.  That  blending  of  moral  indifference 
with  artistic  seriousness,  which  we  observe  in  him, 
marks  the  coming  age.  He  is  not  the  precursor  but 
the  inaugurator  of  the  era.  The  smile  which  plays 
around  his  mouth  became,  though  changeful  in  ex- 
pression, fixed  upon  the  lips  of  his  posterity — genial 
in  Ariosto,  gracious  in  Poliziano,  mischievous  in  Pulci, 
dubious  in  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  sardonic  in  Aretino. 
bitter  in  Folengo,  toned  to  tragic  irony  in  Machiavelli. 
impudent  in  Berni,  joyous  in  Boiardo,  sensual  in  Ban- 
dello — assuming  every  shade  of  character,  Protean, 
indescribable,  until  at  last  it  fades  from  Tasso's  brow, 
when  Italy  has  ceased  to  laugh  except  in  secret. 

The  Decameron  has  been  called  the  Commedia 
Umana.1  This  title  is  appropriate,  not  merely  because 
the  book  portrays  human  life  from  a  comic  rather  than 

1  De  Sanctis,  Storia  della  Letteratura  Italiana,  vol.  i.  cap.  9. 


THE   HUMAN   COMEDY.  1O$ 

a.  serious  point  of  view,  but  also  because  it  is  the 
direct  antithesis  of  Dante's  Commedia  Divina.  As 
poet  and  scene-painter  devised  for  our  ancestors  of 
the  Elizabethan  period  both  Mask  and  Anti-mask, 
so  did  the  genius  of  Italy  provide  two  shows  for 
modern  Europe — the  Mask  and  Anti-mask  of  hu- 
man nature.  Dante's  Comedy  represents  our  life  in 
relation  to  the  life  beyond  the  grave.  Boccaccio  in  his 
Comedy  depicts  the  life  of  this  earth  only,  subtracting 
whatsoever  may  suggest  a  life  to  come.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  determine  which  of  the  two  dramas  is  the 
more  truthful,  or  which  of  the  two  poets  had  a  firmer 
grasp  upon  reality.  But  the  realities  of  the  Divine 
Comedy  are  spiritual ;  those  of  the  Human  Comedy 
are  material.  The  world  of  the  Decameron  is  not  an 
inverted  world,  like  that  of  Aristophanes.  It  does 
not  antithesize  Dante's  world  by  turning  it  upside 
down.  It  is  simply  the  same  world  surveyed  from  an 
opposite  point  of  view — unaltered,  uninverted,  but 
seen  in  the  superficies,  presented  in  the  concrete.  It 
is  the  prose  of  life ;  and  this  justifies  the  counterpoise 
of  its  form  to  that  of  Dante's  poem.  It  is  the  world 
as  world,  the  flesh  as  flesh,  nature  as  nature,  without 
intervention  of  spiritual  agencies,  without  relation  to 
ideal  order,  regarded  as  the  sphere  of  humor,  for- 
tune, marvelous  caprice.  It  is  everything  which  the 
Church  had  banned,  proscribed,  held  in  abhorrence, 
without  that  which  the  Church  had  inculcated  for  the 
exaltation  of  the  soul.  This  world,  actual  and  unex- 
plained, Boccaccio  paints  with  the  mastery  of  an  ac- 
complished artist,  molding  its  chaotic  elements  into  a 
form  of  beauty  which  comoels  attention, 


106  RENAISSANCE   IN   ITALY. 

Dante  condemned  those  "  who  submit  their  reason 
to  natural  appetite."1  Boccaccio  celebrates  the  apothe- 
osis of  natural  appetite,  of  il  talento,  stigmatized  as  sin 
by  ascetic  Christianity.2  His  strongest  sympathies  arc 
reserved  for  those  who  suffer  by  abandoning  them- 
selves to  impulse,  and  in  this  self-abandonment  he  sees 
the  poetry  of  life.  This  is  the  very  core  of  the  an- 
tithesis presented  by  the  Human  to  the  Divine  Comedy. 
The  Decameron  is  an  undesigned  revolt  against  the 
sum  of  medieval  doctrine.  Like  all  vehement  reac- 
tions, it  is  not  satisfied  with  opposing  the  extrava- 
gances of  the  view  it  combats.  Instead  of  negativing 
asceticism,  it  affirms  license.  Yet  though  the  Divine 
Comedy  and  the  Decameron  are  antithetical,  they  are 
both  true,  and  true  together,  inasmuch  as  they  pre- 
sent the  same  humanity  studied  under  contradictory 
conditions.  Human  nature  is  vast  enough  to  furnish 
the  materials  for  both,  inexplicable  enough  to  render 
both  acceptable  to  reason,  tolerant  enough  to  view 
with  impartial  approbation  the  desolate  theology  of 
the  Inferno  and  the  broad  mirth  of  the  Decameron.3 

1  "  Che  la  ragion  sommettono  al  talento: "  Inferno  v.  Compare  these 
phrases: 

Le  genti  dolorose 
Che  hanno  perduto  il  ben  dell*  intelletto. 

— Inferno  iii. 
And  Semiramis: 

Che  libito  fe  lecito  in  sua  legge. 

— Inferno  v. 

8  In  all  his  earlier  works,  especially  in  the  Fiammetta,  the  Filostrafo, 
the  Ninfale  Fiesolano,  the  Amoroso,  Visione,  he  sings  the  hymn  of  II 
Talento,  triumphant  over  medieval  discipline.  They  form  the  proper 
prelude  to  what  is  sometimes  called  the  Paganism  of  the  Renaissance, 
but  what  is  really  a  resurgence  of  the  natural  man.  It  was  this  talentc 
which  Valla  philosophized,  and  Beccadelli  and  Pontano  sang. 

»  One  instance  will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  different  methods  of  Hoc- 


FABLIAUX.  107 

The  Decameron  did  not  appear  unheralded  by 
similar  attempts.  No  literary  taste  was  stronger  in 
the  middle  ages  than  the  taste  for  stories.  This  is 
proved  by  the  collection  known  as  Gesta  Romanorum, 
and  by  the  Bestiarii,  Lapidarii,  Physiologi  and  Apiarii, 
which  contain  a  variety  of  tales,  many  of  them  sur- 
prisingly indecent,  veiling  spiritual  doctrine  under 
obscenities  which  horrify  a  modern  reader.1  From 
the  hands  of  ecclesiastical  compilers  these  short  stories 
passed  down  to  popular  narrators,  who  in  France 
made  the  fabliaux  a  special  branch  of  vulgar  literature. 
The  follies  and  vices  of  the  clergy,  tricks  practiced  by 
wives  upon  their  husbands,  romantic  adventures  of 
lovers,  and  comic  incidents  of  daily  life,  formed  the 
staple  of  their  stock  in  trade.  When  the  fabliau 
reached  Italy,  together  with  other  literary  wares,  from 
France,  it  was  largely  cultivated  in  the  South;  and  the 
first  known  collection  of  Italian  stories  received  the 
name  of  //  Novellino,  or  //  Fiore  del  parlar  gentile. 
The  language  of  this  book  was  immature,  and  the 
tales  themselves  seem  rather  memoranda  for  the  nar- 
rator than  finished  compositions  to  be  read  with  plea- 
sure.2 It  may  therefore  be  admitted  that  the  rude 

caccio  and  Dante  in  dealing  with  the  same  material.  We  all  know  in 
what  murk  and  filth  Dante  beheld  Ciacco,  the  glutton,  and  what  tor- 
ments awaited  Filippo  Argenti,  \htfiorentino  spirito  bizzarro,  upon  the 
marsh  of  Styx  (Inferno  vi.  and  viii.).  These  persons  play  the  chief  parts 
in  Giorn.  ix.  nov.  8,  of  the  Decameron.  They  are  still  the  spendthrift 
parasite,  and  the  brutally  capricious  bully.  But  while  Dante  points  the 
sternest  moral  by  their  examples,  Boccaccio  makes  their  vices  serve  his 
end  of  comic  humor.  The  inexorableness  of  Dante  is  nowhere  more 
dreadful  than  in  the  eighth  Canto  of  the  Inferno.  The  levity  of  Boc- 
caccio is  nowhere  more  superficial  than  in  that  Novella. 

1  See  the  little  work,  full  of  critical  learning,  by  Adolfo  Bartoli,  / 
Precursors  del  Boccaccio,  Firenze,  Sansoni. 

-  See  Le  Novelle  Antiche  (another  name  for  II  Novellino),  per  cura  di 


108  KhA'AISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

form  of  the  Decameron  was  given  to  Boccaccio.  Not 
to  mention  the  larger  chivalrous  romances,  Conti  di 
antichi  Cavalieri,  and  translations  from  French  Chan- 
sons de  Geste,  which  have  no  genuine  link  of  connection 
with  the  special  type  of  the  Novella,  he  found  models 
for  his  tales  both  in  the  libraries  of  medieval  convents 
and  upon  the  lips  of  popular  raccontatori.  Yet  this 
must  not  be  taken  to  imply  any  lack  of  originality  in 
Boccaccio.  Such  comparisons  as  Professor  Bartoli  has 
instituted  between  the  Decameron  and  some  of  its 
supposed  sources,  prove  the  insignificance  of  his  debt, 
the  immeasurable  inferiority  of  his  predecessors.1 

The  spirit  of  the  Decameron  no  less  than  the 
form,  had  been  long  in  preparation.  Satire,  whether 
superficial,  as  in  the  lays  of  the  jongleurs,  or  searching, 
as  in  the  invectives  of  Dante  and  Petrarch,  was  famil- 
iar to  the  middle  ages;  and  the  popular  Latin  poems 
of  the  wandering  students  are  steeped  in  rage  against 
a  corrupt  hierarchy,  a  venal  Curia.2  Those  same  Car- 

Guido  Biagi,  Firenze,  Sansoni,  1880.  It  is  a  curious  agglomeration  of 
anecdotes  drawn  from  the  history  of  the  Suabian  princes,  Roman  sources, 
the  Arthurian  legends,  the  Bible,  Oriental  apologues,  fables,  and  a  few 
ancient  myths.  That  of  Narcis,  p.  66,  is  very  prettily  told.  Only  one 
tale  is  decidedly  cynical.  We  find  in  the  book  selections  made  from 
the  dlbris  of  a  vast  and  various  medieval  library.  French  influence  i.\ 
frequently  perceptible  in  the  style. 

1  Precursors  del  Boccaccio,  p.  57  to  end. 

»  See  Carmina  Burana  (Stuttgart,  1847),  PP-  I-H2;  Poems  of  Walter 
Mapes,  by  Thomas  Wright  (for  Camden  Society,  1841),  pp.  1-257,  for 
examples  of  these  satiric  poems.  The  Propter  Syon  non  tacebo,  Flete 
Sionfilice,  Utar  contra  vitia,  should  be  specially  noticed.  Many  other 
curious  satires,  notably  one  against  marriage  and  the  female  sex,  can 
also  be  found  fn  Du  MeYil's  three  great  collections,  Poisies  Populaires 
Latines  antirieures  au  douzieme  Siecle,  Poesies  Populaires  Latines  du 
Moyen  Age,  and  Poisies  Inidites  du  May  en  Age,  Paris,  1843-1847 
Those  to  whom  these  works  are  not  accessible,  may  find  an  excellent 
selection  of  the  serious  and  jocular  popular  Latin  medieval  poetry  in  a 
Httle. volume  (7 .-in ./,-.•/ >nusf  Carmina  Va^orum  selecta,  Lipsiae,  Teubnei. 


CARMINA    BUR  ANA.  109 

mina  Vagorum  reveal  the  smoldering  embers  of  un- 
extinguished  Paganism,  which  underlay  the  Christian 
culture  of  the  middle  ages.  Written  by  men  who 
belonged  to  the  clerical  classes,  but  who  were  often  on 
bad  terms  with  ecclesiastical  authorities,  tinctured  with 
the  haughty  contempt  of  learning  for  the  laity,  yet 
overflowing  with  the  vigorous  life  of  the  proletariate, 
these  extraordinary  poems  bring  to  view  a  bold  and 
candid  sensuality,  an  ineradicable  spontaneity  of  nat- 
ural appetite,  which  is  strangely  at  variance  with  the 
cardinal  conceptions  of  ascetic  Christianity.1  In  the 
sect  of  the  Italian  Epicureans ;  in  the  obscure  bands  of 

1877.  The  question  of  their  authorship  has  been  fairly  well  discussed  by 
Hubatsch,  Die  lateinischen  Vagantenlieder,  Gb'rlitz,  1870. 

1  The  erotic  and  drinking  songs  of  the  Vagi  deserve  to  be  carefully 
studied  by  all  who  wish  to  understand  the  germs  of  the  Renaissance  in 
the  middle  ages.  They  express  a  simple  naturalism,  not  of  necessity 
Pagan,  though  much  is  borrowed  from  the  language  of  classical  mytho- 
logy. I  would  call  attention  in  particular  to  sEstuans  interius,  Omit- 
tamus  studia,  O  admirabile  Veneris  idolum,  Ludo  cum  Ccecilia,  Si puer 
cum  puellula,  and  four  Pastoralia,  all  of  which  may  be  found  in  the  little 
book  Gaudeamus  cited  above.  In  spontaneity  and  truth  of  feeling  they 
correspond  to  the  Latin  hymns.  But  their  spirit  is  the  exact  antithesis 
of  that  which  produced  the  Dies  Ira  and  the  Stabat  Mater.  The  absence 
of  erudition  and  classical  imitation  separates  them  from  the  poems  of 
Beccadelli,  Pontano,  Poliziano,  or  Bembo.  They  present  the  natural  ma- 
terial of  neo-pagan  Latin  verse  without  its  imitative  form.  It  is  youth 
rejoicing  in  its  strength  and  lustihood,  enjoying  the  delights  of  spring, 
laughing  at  death,  taking  the  pleasures  of  the  moment,  deriding  the 
rumores  senum  severiorum,  unmasking  hypocrisy  in  high  places,  at 
wanton  war  with  constituted  social  shams.  These  songs  were  written 
by  wandering  students  of  all  nations,  who  traversed  Germany,  France, 
Italy,  Spain,  England,  seeking  special  knowledge  at  the  great  centers  of 
learning,  following  love-adventures,  poor  and  careless,  coldly  greeted  by 
the  feudal  nobility  and  the  clergy,  attached  to  the  people  by  their  habits 
but  separated  from  them  by  their  science.  In  point  of  faith  these  poets 
are  orthodox.  There  is  no  questioning  of  ecclesiastical  dogma,  no  an- 
ticipation of  Luther,  in  their  verses.  This  blending  of  theological  con- 
formity with  satire  on  the  Church  and  moral  laxity  is  eminently  charac- 
teristic of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy. 


HO  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

the  Cathari  and  Paterini ;  in  the  joyous  companies  of 
Provencal  Court  and  castle,  the  same  note  of  irre- 
pressible nature  sounded.  Side  by  side  with  the  new- 
built  fabric  of  ecclesiastical  idealism,  the  old  temples 
of  unregenerate  human  deities  subsisted.  They  were 
indeed  discredited,  proscribed,  consigned  to  shame. 
They  formed  the  mauvais  lieux  of  Christendom.  Yet 
there  they  stood,  even  as  the  Venusberg  of  Tann- 
hauser's  legend  abode  unshaken  though  cathedrals 
rose  by  Rhine.  All  that  was  needed  to  restore  the 
worship  of  these  nature-gods  was  that  a  great  artist 
should  decorate  their  still  substantial  temple- walls  with 
the  beauty  of  a  new,  sincere,  and  unrepentant  style, 
fitting  their  abandoned  chambers  for  the  habitation  of 
the  human  spirit,  free  now  to  choose  the  dwelling  that 
it  listed.  This  Boccaccio  achieved.  And  here  it 
must  again  be  noticed  that  the  revolution  of  time  was 
about  to  bring  man's  popular  and  carnal  deities  once 
more,  if  only  for  a  season,  to  the  throne.  The  mur- 
mured songs  of  a  few  wandering  students  were  about 
to  be  drowned  in  the  paan  of  Renaissance  poetry. 
The  visions  of  the  Venusberg  were  to  be  realized  in 
Italian  painting.  The  coming  age  was  destined  to 
live  out  Boccaccio's  Human  Comedy  in  act  and  deed. 
This  is  the  true  kernel  of  his  greatness.  As  poet,  he 
ranked  third  only,  and  that  at  a  vast  interval,  in  the 
triumvirate  of  the  fourteenth  century.  But  the  tem- 
per of  his  mind,  the  sphere  of  his  conceptions,  made 
him  the  representative  genius  of  the  two  following 
centuries.  Awaiting  the  age  when  science  should  once 
more  co-ordinate  the  forces  of  humanity  in  a  coherent 
theory,  men  in  the  Renaissance  exchanged  superfluous 


THE  PLAGUE.  Til 

restraint  for  immoderate  license.     It  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  Boccaccio  and  not  Dante  was  their  hero. 

The  description  of  the  Plague  at  Florence  which 
introduces  the  Decameron,  has  more  than  a  merely 
artistic  appropriateness.  Boccaccio  may  indeed  have 
meant  to  bring  his  group  of  pleasure -seeking  men  and 
maidens  into  strong  relief  by  contrast  with  the  horrors 
of  the  stricken  city.  Florence  crowded  with  corpses, 
echoing  to  the  shrieks  of  delirium  and  the  hoarse  cries 
of  body-buriers,  is  the  background  he  has  chosen  for 
that  blooming  garden,  where  the  birds  sing  and  the 
lovers  sit  by  fountains  in  the  shade,  laughing  or  weep- 
ing as  the  spirit  of  each  tale  compels  them.  But  in- 
dependently of  this  effect  of  contrast,  which  might  be 
used  to  illustrate  the  author's  life-philosophy,  the  de- 
scription of  the  Plague  has  a  still  deeper  significance, 
whereof  Boccaccio  never  dreamed.  Matteo  Villani 
dates  a  progressive  deterioration  of  manners  in  the 
city  from  the  Plague  of  1348,  and  justifies  us  in  con- 
necting the  Ciompi  riots  of  1378  with  the  enfeeblement 
of  civic  order  during  those  thirty  years.  The  Plague 
was,  therefore,  the  outward  sign,  if  not  the  efficient 
cause,  of  those  very  ethical  and  social  changes  which 
the  Decameron  immortalized  in  literature.  It  was  the 
historical  landmark  between  two  ages,  dividing  the 
Florence  of  the  Grandi  from  the  Florence  of  the 
Ciompi.  The  cynicism,  liberated  in  that  time  of  terror, 
lawlessness,  and  sudden  death,  assumed  in  Boccaccio's 
romance  a  beautiful  and  graceful  aspect.  It  lost  its 
harsh  and  vulgar  outlines,  and  took  the  air  of  genial 
indulgence  which  distinguished  Italian  society  through- 
out the  years  of  the  Renaissance. 


M2  RENAISSANCE    Iff  ITALY. 

Boccaccio  selects  seven  ladies  of  ages  varying 
from  eighteen  to  twenty-eight,  and  three  men,  the 
youngest  of  whom  is  twenty-five.  Having  formed 
this  company,  he  transports  them  to  a  villa  two  miles 
from  the  city,  where  he  provides  them  with  a  train  of 
serving-men  and  waiting-women,  and  surrounds  them 
with  the  delicacies  of  medieval  luxury.  He  is  careful 
to  remind  us  that,  though  the  three  men  and  three  of 
the  ladies  were  acknowledged  lovers,  and  though  their 
conversation  turned  on  almost  nothing  else  but  pas- 
sion, "  no  stain  defiled  the  honor  of  the  party." 
Stories  are  told;  and  these  unblemished  maidens 
listen  with  laughter  and  a  passing  blush  to  words 
and  things  which  outrage  Northern  sense  of  decency. 
The  remorseless  but  light  satire  of  the  Decameron 
spares  none  of  the  ideals  of  the  age.  All  the  me- 
dieval enthusiasms  are  reviewed  and  criticised  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  Florentine  bottega  and  piazza. 
It  is  as  though  the  bourgeois,  not  content  with  having 
made  nobility  a  crime,  were  bent  upon  extinguishing 
its  spirit.  The  tale  of  Agilulf  vulgarizes  the  chival- 
rous conception  of  love  ennobling  men  of  low  estate, 
by  showing  how  a  groom,'  whose  heart  is  set  upon  a 
queen,  avails  himself  of  opportunity.  Tancredi  bur- 
lesques the  knightly  reverence  for  a  stainless  scutcheon 
by  the  extravagance  of  his  revenge.  The  sanctity  of 
the  Thebaid,  that  ascetic  dream  of  purity  and  self- 
renunciation  for  God's  service,  is  made  ridiculous  by 
Alibech.  Ser  Ciappelletto  brings  contempt  upon  the 
canonization  of  saints.  The  confessional,  the  worship 
of  relics,  the  priesthood,  and  the  monastic  orders 
are  derided  with  the  deadliest  persiflage.  Christ  him- 


BOCCACCIO'' S  IRONY.  1 13 

self  is  scoffed  at  in  a  jest  which  points  the  most  in- 
decent of  these  tales. l  Marriage  affords  a  never-failing 
theme  for  scorn;  and  when,  by  way  of  contrast,  the 
novelist  paints  an  ideal  wife,  he  runs  into  such  hyper- 
boles that  the  very  patience  of  Griselda  is  a  satire  on 
its  dignity.  Like  Balzac,  Boccaccio  was  unsuccessful 
in  depicting  virtuous  womanhood.  Attempting  this, 
he  fell,  like  Balzac,  into  the  absurdities  of  sentiment. 
His  own  conception  of  love  was  sensual  and  voluptu- 
ous— not  uniformly  coarse,  nay  often  tender,  but 
frankly  carnal.  Without  having  recourse  to  the 
Decameron,  this  statement  might  be  abundantly 
substantiated  by  reference  to  the  Filostrato,  Fiam- 
metta,  Amoroso,  Visione,  Ninfale  Fiesolano.  Boccaccio 
enjoyed  the  painting  of  licentious  pleasure,  snatched 
in  secret,  sometimes  half  by  force,  by  a  lover  after 
moderate  resistance  from  his  paramour.  He  imported 
into  these  pictures  the  plebeian  tone  which  we  have 
already  noticed  in  the  popular  poetry  of  the  preceding 
century,  and  which  was  destined  to  pervade  the  erotic 
literature  of  the  Renaissance.  There  is,  therefore,  an 
ironical  contrast  between  the  decencies  observed  by 
his  brigata  and  their  conversation;  a  contrast  rooted 
in  the  survival  from  chivalrous  times  of  conventional 
ideals,  which  have  lost  reality  and  been  persistently 
ignored  in  practice.  This  effect  of  irony  is  enhanced 
by  the  fact  that  many  of  the  motives  are  such  as 
might  have  been  romantically  treated,  but  here  are 
handled  from  the  popolano  grassds  point  of  view.  A 
skeptical  and  sensuous  imagination  plays  around  the 

'  See  the  last  sentence  of  Giorn.  iii.  Nov.  i. 


114  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

sanctities  and  sublimities  which  have  for  it  become 
illusory. 

We  observe  the  same  kind  of  unconscious  hypoc- 
risy, the  same  spontaneous  sapping  of  now  obsolete 
ideals,  in  the  Amoroso,  Visione.^  Here  Love  is  still 
regarded  as  the  apotheosis  of  mortal  experience.  It 
is  still  said  to  be  the  union  of  intelligence  and  moral 
energy  in  an  enthusiasm  of  the  soul.  Yet  the  joys  of 
love  revealed  at  the  conclusion  of  the  poem  are  such 
as  a  bayadere  might  offer.2  The  bourgeois  effaces  the 
knight;  the  Italian  of  the  Renaissance  has  broken  the 
leading  strings  of  mystical  romance.  This  vision, 
composed  in  terza  rima,  was  assuredly  not  meant  to 
travesty  Dante.  Still  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine 
a  more  complete  inversion  of  the  Dantesque  point  of 
view,  a  more  deliberate  substitution  of  an  Earthly 
Paradise  for  the  Paradise  of  the  Divine  Comedy.  It 
is  as  though  Boccaccio,  the  representative  of  the  new 
age,  in  all  the  fullness  of  his  sensuous  naivete,  appealed 
to  the  poets  of  chivalry,  and  said:  "  See  here  how  all 
your  fancies  find  their  end  in  nature!" 

It  will  not  do  to  over-strain  the  censure  implied  in  the 
foregoing  paragraphs.  Natural  appetite,  no  less  than 
the  ideal,  has  its  elements  of  poetry;  and  the  sensu- 
ality of  the  Decameron  accords  with  plastic  beauty  in 
a  work  of  art  incomparably  lucid.  Shelley,  no  lenient 
critic,  wrote  these  words  about  the  setting  of  the 
tales3:  "What  descriptions  of  nature  are  those  in  his 
little  introductions  to  every  new  day!  It  is  the 
morning  of  life  stripped  of  that  mist  of  familiarity 

i  Op.  Volg.  vol.  xiv.  *  Cap.  xlbc. 

»  Letter  to  Leigh  Hunt.  September  8,  1819. 


SENSE    OF  BEAUTY.  115 

which  makes  it  obscure  to  us."  Boccaccio's  sense  of 
beauty  has  already  been  alluded  to;  and  it  so  pervades 
his  work  that  special  attention  need  scarcely  be  called 
to  it.  His  prose  abounds  in  passages  which  are 
perfect  pictures  after  their  own  kind,  like  the  following, 
selected,  not  from  the  Decameron,  but  from  an  earlier 
work,  entitled  Filocopo1: 

Con  gli  orecchi  intent!  al  suono,  comincib  ad  andare  in  quella  parte 
ove  il  sentiva;  e  giunto  presso  alia  fontana,  vide  le  due  giovinette.  Elle 
erano  nel  viso  bianchissime,  la  quale  bianchezza  quanto  si  conveniva 
di  rosso  colore  era  mescolata.  I  loro  ocohi  pareano  mattutine  stelle, 
e  le  picciole  bocche  di  colore  di  vermiglia  rosa,  piu  piacevoli  diveniano 
nel  muoverle  alle  note  della  loro  canzone.  I  loro  capelli  come  fila  d'oro 
erano  biondissimi,  i  quali  alquanto  crespi  s'avvolgevano  infra  le  verdi 
frondi  delle  loro  ghirlande.  Vestite  per  lo  gran  caldo,  come  e  detto 
sopra,  le  tenere  e  dilicate  carni  di  sottilissimi  vestimenti,  i  quali  dalla 
cintura  in  su  strettissimi  mostravano  la  forma  delle  belle  mamme,  le 
quali  come  due  ritondi  pomi  pignevano  in  fuori  il  resistente  vestimento, 
e  ancora  in  piu  luoghi  per  leggiadre  apriture  si  manifestavano  le  can- 
dide  carni.  La  loro  statura  era  di  convenevole  grandezza,  in  ciascun 
membro  bene  proporzionata. 

Space  and  nineteenth-century  canons  of  propriety 
prevent  me  from  completing  the  picture  made  by 

1  Op.  Volg.  vol.  vii.  p.  230.  I  am  loth  to  attempt  a  translation  of  this 
passage,  which  owes  its  charm  to  the  melody  and  rhythm  of  chosen 
words: — 

"  With  ears  intent  upon  the  music,  he  began  to  go  in  the  direction 
whence  he  heard  it;  and  when  he  drew  nigh  to  the  fountain,  he  beheld 
the  two  maidens.  They  were  of  countenance  exceeding  white,  and  this 
whiteness  was  blent  in  seemly  wise  with  ruddy  hues.  Their  eyes  seemed 
to  be  stars  of  morning,  and  their  little  mouths,  of  the  color  of  a  vermeil 
rose,  became  of  pleasanter  aspect  as  they  moved  them  to  the  music  of 
their  song.  Their  tresses,  like  threads  of  gold,  were  very  fair,  and 
slightly  curled  went  wandering  through  the  green  leaves  of  their  garlands. 
By  reason  of  the  great  heat  their  tender  and  delicate  limbs,  as  hath  been 
said  above,  were  clad  in  robes  of  the  thinnest  texture,  the  which,  made 
very  tight  above  the  waist,  revealed  the  form  of  their  fair  bosoms,  which 
like  two  round  apples  pushed  the  opposing  raiment  outward,  and  there- 
with in  divers  places  the  white  flesh  appeared  through  graceful  openings. 
Their  stature  was  of  fitting  size,  and  each  limb  well-proportioned." 


Il6  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Florio  and  these  maidens.  It  might  be  paralleled 
with  a  hundred  passages  of  like  intention,  where  the 
Italian  artist  is  revealed  to  us  by  touches  curiously 
multiplied.1  We  find  in  them  the  sense  of  color,  the 
scrupulous  precision  of  form,  and  something  of  that 
superfluous  minuteness  which  belongs  to  painting 
rather  than  to  literature.  The  writer  has  seen  a 
picture,  and  not  felt  a  poem.  In  rendering  it  by 
words,  he  trusted  to  the  imagination  of  his  reader  for 
suggesting  a  highly-finished  work  of  plastic  art  to  the 
mind.2  The  files  champttres  of  the  Venetian  masters 
are  here  anticipated  in  the  prose  of  the  trecento.  Such 
descriptions  were  frequent  in  Italian  literature,  especially 
frequent  in  the  works  of  the  best  stylists,  Sannazzaro, 
Poliziano,  Ariosto,  the  last  of  whom  has  been  severely 
but  not  unjustly  criticised  by  Lessing  for  overstep- 
ping the  limits  of  poetry  in  his  portrait  of  Alcina. 
It  may  be  pleaded  in  defense  of  Boccaccio  and  his 
followers  that  they  belonged  to  a  nation  dedicated  to 
the  figurative  arts,  and  that  they  wrote  for  a  public 
familiar  with  painted  form.  Their  detailed  descrip- 
tions were  at  once  translated  into  color  by  men 
habituated  to  the  sight  of  pictures.  During  the 
Renaissance,  painting  dominated  the  Italian  genius, 
and  all  the  sister  arts  of  expression  felt  that  influence, 

1  The  description  of  the  nymph  Lia  in  the  Ameto  (Op.  Volg.  xv. 
30-33)  carries  Boccaccio's  manner  into  tedious  prolixity. 

*  Boccaccio  was  a  great  painter  of  female  beauty  and  idyllic  land- 
scape; but  he  had  not  the  pictorial  faculty  in  a  wider  sense.  The  fres- 
coes of  the  Amoroso.  Visione,  when  compared  with  Poliziano's  descrip- 
tions in  La  Giostra,  are  but  meager  notes  of  form.  Possibly  the  progress 
of  the  arts  from  Giotto  to  Benozzo  Gozzoli  and  Botticelli  may  explain  this 
picturesque  inferiority  of  the  elder  poet;  but  in  reading  Boccaccio  we 
feel  that  the  defect  lay  not  so  much  in  his  artistic  faculty  as  in  the  lim- 
Uation  of  his  sympathy  to  certain  kinds  of  beauty. 


THE    TESEIDE.  117 

just  as  at  Athens  sculpture  lent  something  even  to 
the  drama. 

As  a  poet,  Boccaccio  tried  many  styles.  His  epic, 
the  Teseide,  cannot  be  reckoned  a  great  success.  He 
was  not  at  home  upon  the  battle-field,  and  knew  not 
how  to  sound  the  heroic  trumpet.1  Yet  the  credit  of 
discovery  may  be  awarded  to  the  author  of  this  poem. 
He  introduced  to  the  modern  world  a  tale  rich  in 
romantic  incidents  and  capable  of  still  higher  treat- 
ment than  he  was  himself  able  to  give  it.  When  we 
remember  how  Chaucer,  Shakspere,  Fletcher  and 
Dryden  handled  and  rehandled  the  episode  of  Pala- 
mon's  rivalry  with  Arcite  for  the  hand  of  Emilia,  we 
dare  not  withhold  from  Boccaccio  the  praise  which 
belongs  to  creative  genius.2  It  is  no  slight  achieve- 

'  Dante  (De  Vulg.  Eloq,  ii.  2)  observed  that  while  there  were  thiee 
ibjects  of  great  poetry — War,  Love,  Morality — no  modern  had  chosen 
the  first  of  these  themes.  Boccaccio  in  the  last  Canto  of  the  Teseide 
seems  to  allude  to  this: 

Poiche  le  muse  nude  cominciaro 

Nel  cospetto  degli  uomini  ad  andare, 

Gia  fur  di  quelli  che  le  esercitaro 

Con  bello  stile  in  ones  to  fiarlare, 

Ed  altri  in  amoroso  le  operaro; 

Ma  tu,  o  libro,  primo  a  lor  cantare 

Di  Marte  fai  gli  affanni  sostenuti, 

Nel  volgar  Lazio  mai  piit  non  veduti. 

*  How  far  Boccaccio  actually  created  the  tale  can  be  questioned.    In 
le  dedication  to  Fiammetta  (Of.  Volg.  ix.  3),  he  says  he  found  a  very 
indent  version  of  his  story,  and  translated  it  into  rhyme  and  the  latino 
volgare  for  the  first  time.     Again,  in  the  exordium  to  the  first  Book 
(ib.  p.  10),  he  calls  it: 

una  storia  antica 

Tanto  negli  anni  riposta  e  nascosa 
Che  latino  autor  non  par  ne  dica 
Per  quel  ch'  i'  senta  in  libro  alcuna  cosa. 
We  might  perhaps  conjecture  that  he  had  discovered  the  legend  ia  a 
Jyzanttne  MS. 


II 8  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

ment  to  have  made  a  story  which  bore  such  noble 
fruit  in  literature.  The  Teseide,  moreover,  fulfilled  an 
important  mission  in  Italian  poetry.  It  adapted  the 
popular  ottava  rima  to  the  style  of  the  romantic  epic, 
and  fixed  it  for  Pulci,  Poliziano,  Boiardo,  and  Ariosto. 
That  Boccaccio  was  not  the  inventor  of  the  stanza,  as 
used  to  be  assumed,  may  now  be  considered  beyond 
all  question.  That  he  had  not  learned  to  handle  it 
with  the  majestic  sweetness  of  Poliziano,  or  the  infinite 
variety  of  Ariosto,  is  evident.  Yet  he  deserves  credit 
for  having  discerned  its  capacity  and  brought  it  into 
cultivated  use. 

Though  unequal  in  quality,  his  sonnets  and  ballate, 
whether  separately  published  or  scattered  through  his 
numerous  prose  works,  have  a  higher  merit.  The 
best  are  those  in  which,  following  Guido  Cavalcanti's 
path,  he  gives  free  scope  to  his  incomparable  sense  of 
natural  beauty.  The  style  is  steeped  in  sweetness, 
softness  and  the  delicacy  of  music.  From  these  half- 
popular  poems  I  might  select  the  Ballata  lo  mi  son 
giovinetta;  the  song  of  the  Angel  from  the  planet  Venus, 
extracted  from  the  Filocopo;  a  lament  of  a  woman  for 
her  lost  youth,  E  fior  che  7  valor  perde;  and  the  girl's 
prayer  to  Love,  Tu  se  nostro  Signor  caro  e  verace.1 
It  is  difficult  for  the  critic  to  characterize  poems  so 
true  to  simple  nature,  so  spontaneously  passionate,  and 
yet  so  artful  in  the  turns  of  language,  molded  like 
wax  beneath  the  poet's  touch.  Here  sensuousness 
has  no  vulgarity,  and  the  seductions  of  the  flesh  are 
sublimed  by  feeling  to  a  beauty  which  is  spiritual  in 
refinement.  It  may  be  observed  that  Boccaccio  writes 

•  Carducci,  "Cantilene,  etc.,"  Op.  cit.  pp.  168,  170,  171.  173- 


THE    RIME. 


119 


his  best  love-poetry  to  be  sung  by  girls.  He  has  aban- 
doned the  standpoint  of  the  chivalrous  lover,  though 
he  still  uses  the  phraseology  of  the  Italo- Pro  venial 
school.  What  arrests  his  fancy  is,  not  the  ideal  of 
womanhood  raising  man  above  himself,  but  woman 
conscious  of  her  own  supreme  attractiveness.  He  de- 
lights in  making  her  the  mirror  of  the  feelings  she 
inspires.  He  bids  her  celebrate  in  hymns  the  beauty 
of  her  sex,  the  perfume  of  the  charms  that  master  man. 
When  the  metaphysical  forms  of  speech,  borrowed 
from  the  elder  style,  are  used,  they  give  utterance 
to  a  passion  which  is  sensual,  or  blent  at  best  with 
tenderness — a  physical  love-longing,  a  sentiment  born 
of  youth  and  desire.  A  girl,  for  instance,  speaks  about 
herself,  and  says : l 

Colui  che  muove  il  cielo  et  ogni  Stella 
Mi  fece  a  suo  diletto 
Vaga  leggiadra  graziosa  e  bella, 
Per  dar  qua  gid  ad  ogni  alto  intelletto 
Alcun  segno  di  quella 
Biltei  che  sempre  a  lui  sta  nel  cospetto. 

On  the  lips  of  him  who  wrote  the  tale  of  Alibech, 
this  language  savors  of  profanity.  Yet  we  are  forced 
to  recognize  the  poet's  sincerity  of  feeling.  It  is  the 
same  problem  as  that  which  meets  us  in  the  Amoroso, 
Visione?  The  god  Boccaccio  worshiped  was  changed: 
but  this  deity  was  still  divine,  and  deserved,  he  thought, 
the  honors  of  mystic  adoration.  At  the  same  time 
there  is  nothing  Asiatic  in  his  sensuous  inspiration. 
The  emotion  is  controlled  and  concentrated;  the  form 
is  pure  in  all  its  outlines. 

The  Decameron  was  the  masterpiece  of  Boccaccio's 
1  Q0.  cit.  p.  160.  t  See  above,  p.  114. 


120  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

maturity.  But  he  did  not  reach  that  height  of  excel- 
lence without  numerous  essays  in  styles  of  much 
diversity.  While  still  a  young  man,  not  long  after  his 
meeting  with  Fiammetta,  he  began  the  Filocopo  and 
dedicated  it  to  his  new  love.1  This  romance  was 
based  upon  the  earlier  tale  of  Floire  et  Blanceflor? 
But  the  youthful  poet  invested  the  simple  love-story 
of  his  Florio  and  Biancofiore  with  a  masquerade  cos- 
tume of  mythological  erudition  and  wordy  rhetoric, 
which  removed  it  from  the  middle  ages.  The  gods 
and  goddesses  of  Olympus  are  introduced  as  living 
agents,  supplying  the  machinery  of  the  romance  until 
the  very  end,  when  the  hero  and  heroine  are  converted 
to  Christianity,  and  abjure  their  old  protectors  with 
cold  equanimity.  We  are  left  to  imagine  that,  for 
Boccaccio  at  any  rate,  Venus,  Mars  and  Cupid  were 
as  real  as  Christ  and  the  saints,  though  superseded 
as  objects  of  pious  veneration.  This  confusion  of 
Pagan  and  Christian  mythology  is  increased  by  his 
habit  of  finding  classical  periphrases  for  the  expression 
of  religious  ideas.  He  calls  nuns  Sacerdotesse  di  Diana. 
God  the  Father  is  Quell'  eccelso  e  inestimabile  principe 
Sommo  Giove.  Satan  becomes  Pluto,  and  human  sin 
is  Atropos.  The  Birth  of  Christ  is  described  thus: 
la  terra  come  sentl  il  nuovo  incarco  delta  deith  del 

1  This  appears  from  the  conclusion  (Op.  Volg.  viii.  376).  Fiammetta 
was  the  natural  daughter  of  Petrarch's  friend  and  patron,  King  Robert. 
Boccaccio  first  saw  her  in  the  church  of  S.  Lawrence  at  Naples,  April  7, 


•  The  history  of  this  widely  popular  medieval  romance  has  been 
traced  by  Du  MeYil  in  his  edition  of  the  thirteenth-century  French  ver- 
sion (Paris,  1856).  He  is  of  opinion  that  Boccaccio  may  have  derived 
it  from  some  Byzantine  source.  But  this  seems  hardly  probable,  since 
Boccaccio  gained  his  knowledge  of  Greek  later  in  life.  Certain  indica- 
tions in  the  Filocopo  point  to  a  Spanish  original. 


FJLOCOPO   AND   FILOSTRATO.  121 

figliuol  di  Giove.  The  Apostles  appear  as  nuam 
cavalieri  entrati  contra  a  Plutone  in  campo.1  The 
style  of  the  Filocopo  was  new;  and  in  spite,  or 
perhaps  because  of,  its  euphuism,  it  had  a  decided 
success.  This  encouraged  Boccaccio  to  attempt  the 
Teseide.  The  Filostrato  soon  followed;  and  here  for 
the  first  time  we  find  the  future  author  of  the  Deca- 
meron.  Under  Greek  names  and  incidents  borrowed 
from  the  War  of  Troy,  we  are  in  fact  studying  some 
episode  from  the  chroniques  galantes  of  the  Neapolitan 
Court,  narrated  with  the  vigor  of  a  perfect  master 
in  the  art  of  story  telling.  Nothing  could  be  further 
removed  in  sentiment  from  the  heroism  of  the  Homeric 
age  or  closer  to  the  customs  of  a  corrupt  Italian  city 
than  this  poem.  In  Troilo  himself  a  feverish  type  of 
character,  overmastered  by  passion  which  is  rather  a 
delirium  of  the  senses  than  a  mood  of  feeling,  has  been 
painted  with  a  force  that  reminds  us  of  the  Fiammetta, 
where  the  same  disease  of  the  soul  is  delineated  in  a 
woman.  Pandaro  shows  for  the  first  time  in  modern 
literature  an  utterly  depraved  nature,  reveling  in 
seduction,  and  glutting  a  licentious  imagination  with 
the  spectacle  of  satiated  lust.  The  frenzied  appetite 
of  Troilo,  Pandaro's  ruffian  arts,  and  the  gradual 
yieldings  of  Griselda  to  a  voluptuous  inclination, 
reveal  the  master's  hand;  and  though  the  poem  is 
hurried  toward  the  close  (Boccaccio  being  only  in- 
terested in  the  portrayal  of  his  hero's  love-languors, 
ecstasies  and  disappointment),  the  Filostrato  must 

1  See  Op.  Volg.  vii.  6-n.  Compare  with  these  phrases  those  se- 
lected from  the  humanistic  writings  of  a  later  date,  Revival  of  Learn- 
in£.  P-  397- 


122  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY 

undoubtedly  be  reckoned  the  finest  of  his  narratives  i 
verse.     The  second  and  third  Cantos  are  remarkabl 
for  dramatic  movement  and  wealth  of  sensuous  im 
agination,  never  rising  to  sublimity  nor  refined  witl 
such  poetry  as  Shakspere  found  for  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
but  welling  copiously  from  a  genuinely  ardent  nature. 
The  love  described  is  nakedly  and  unaffectedly  luxu- 
rious; it  is  an  overmastering  impulse,  crowned  at  lasf 
with  all  the  joys   of  sensual  fruition.     According  t( 
Boccaccio   the   repose    conferred   by   Love    upon    hi 
votaries    is    the    satiety    of    their    desires.1     Betweei 
Dante's  Signore  delta  nobilitade  and  his   Sir  di  tuth 
pace  there  is  indeed  a  wide  gulf  fixed.2 

After  the  Filostrato,  Boccaccio  next  produced  the 

1  This  is  the  climax  (Parte  Terza,  stanza  xxxii.): 
A  cui  Troilo  disse;  anima  mia, 
I'  te  ne  prego,  si  ch'  io  t'  abbia  in  braccio 
Ignuda  si  come  il  mio  cor  disia. 
Ed  ella  allora:  ve*  che  me  ne  spaccio; 
£  la  camicia  sua  gittata  via, 
Nelle  sue  braccia  si  raccolse  avvaccio; 
E  stringnendo  1'  un  1*  altro  con  fervore, 
D'  amor  sentiron  1'  ultimo  valore. 

8  The  Amoroso  Visione  ends  with  these  words,  Sir  di  tutta  pace; 
their  meaning  is  explained  in  previous  passages  of  the  same  poem.  At 
the  end  of  cap.  xlvi.  the  lady  says: 

Io  volli  ora  al  presente  far  quieto 
II  tuo  disio  con  amorosa  pace, 
Dandoti  1'  arra  che  finirk  il  fleto. 
Again  in  cap.  1.  we  read: 

E  quel  disio  che  or  piu  ti  tormenta 
Porro  in  pace,  con  quella  bellezza 
Che  1*  alma  al  cor  tuttora  ti  presenta. 

The  context  reveals  the  nature  of  the  peace  to  be  attained.  It  is  the 
satisfaction  of  an  orgasm.  We  may  compare  the  invocation  to  Venus 
and  her  promise  at  the  end  of  the  Caccia  di  Diana,  canto  xvii.  (Op.  Volg. 
xiv.).  The  time-honored  language  about  "expelling  all  base  thoughts " 
is  here  combined  with  the  anticipation  of  sensual  possession. 


FIAMMETTA.  1*3 

Ameto,  Amoroso,  Visionc,  Fiammetta,  Ninfale  Fieso- 
lano,  and  Corbaccio,  between  the  years  1343  and  1355. 
The  Ameto  is  a  tissue  of  pastoral  tales,  descriptions, 
and  versified  interludes,  prolix  in  style  and  affected 
with  pedantic  erudition.  To  read  it  attentively  is  now 
almost  impossible,  in  spite  of  frequent  passages  where 
the  luxuriant  word-painting  of  the  author  is  con- 
spicuous. In  the  Amoroso,  Visione  he  attempted  the 
style  which  Petrarch  had  adopted  for  his  Trionfi. 
After  reviewing  human  life  under  the  several  aspects 
of  learning,  glory,  love,  fortune,  the  poet  finally  resigns 
himself  to  a  Nirvana  of  sensual  beatitude.  The  poem 
is  unsuccessful,  because  it  adapts  an  obsolete  form  of  art 
to  requirements  beyond  its  scope.  Boccaccio  tries  to 
pour  the  new  wine  of  the  Renaissance  into  the  old 
bottles  of  medieval  allegory.  In  the  Fiammetta 
Boccaccio  exhibited  all  his  strength  as  an  anatomist  of 
feeling,  describing  the  effects  of  passion  in  a  woman's 
heart,  and  analyzing  its  varying  emotions  with  a 
subtlety  which  proved  his  knowledge  of  a  certain 
type  of  female  character.  It  is  the  first  attempt  in 
modern  literature  to  portray  subjective  emotion  ex- 
terior to  the  writer.  Since  Virgil's  Dido,  or  the 
Heroidum  Epistolce  of  Ovid,  nothing  of  the  sort  had 
been  essayed  upon  an  equal  scale.  Taken  together 
with  Dante's  Vita  Nuova  and  Petrarch's  Secretum, 
each  of  which  is  a  personal  confidence,  the  Fiammetta 
may  be  reckoned  among  those  masterpieces  of  analytic 
art,  which  revealed  the  developed  consciousness  of  the 
Italian  race,  at  a  moment  when  the  science  of  emotion 
was  still  for  the  rest  of  Europe  an  undiscovered  terri- 
tory. This  essay  exercised  a  wide  and  lasting  influence 


124  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

over  the  descriptive  literature  of  the  Renaissance.  Yet 
when  we  compare  its  stationary  monologues  with  the 
brief  but  pregnant  touches  of  the  Decameron,  we  are 
forced  to  assign  it  the  rank  of  a  study  rather  than  a 
finished  picture.  The  Fiammetta  is  to  the  Decameron 
what  rhetoric  is  to  the  drama.  This,  however,  is 
hardly  a  deduction  from  its  merit.  The  delineation  of 
an  unholy  and  unhappy  passion,  blessed  with  fruition 
for  one  brief  moment,  cursed  through  months  of  illness 
and  despair  with  all  the  furies  of  vain  desire  and 
poignant  recollection,  is  executed  with  incomparable 
fullness  of  detail  and  inexhaustible  richness  of  fancy. 
The  reader  rises  from  a  perusal  of  the  Fiammetta  with 
impressions  similar  to  those  which  a  work  of  Richard- 
son leaves  upon  the  mind.  At  the  same  time  it  is  full 
of  poetry.  The  Vision  of  Venus,  the  invocation  to 
Sleep,  and  the  description  of  summer  on  the  Bay  of 
Baise  relieve  a  deliberate  anatomy  of  passion,  which 
might  otherwise  be  tedious.1  The  romance  is  so  rich 
in  material  that  it  furnished  the  motives  for  a  score  of 
tales,  and  the  novelists  of  the  Renaissance  availed 
themselves  freely  of  its  copious  stores.2 

The  Corbaccio  or  Laberinto  d'Amore  is  a  satire 
upon  women,  animated  with  the  bitterest  sense  of 
injury  and  teeming  with  vindictive  spite.  It  was 
written  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  reviling  a  lady 
who  had  rejected  Boccaccio's  advances,  and  it  paints 
the  whole  sex  in  the  darkest  colors.  We  could 
fancy  that  certain  passages  had  been  penned  by  a 

1  Op.  Volg.  vi.  21,  89,  91. 

»  Bonucci  in  his  edition  of  Alberti's  works,  conscious  of  that  author's 
debt  to  Boccaccio,  advances  the  wild  theory  that  he  wrote  the  Fiam- 
metta. See  Opere  Volgari  di  L.  B.  Alberti,  vol.  iii.  p.  353. 


CORBACCIO   AND  NINFALE.  125 

disappointed  monk.  Though  this  work  is  in  tone 
unworthy  of  its  author,  it  bore  fruits  in  the  literature 
of  the  next  century.  Alberti's  satires  are  but  rhetorical 
amplifications  of  themes  suggested  by  the  Corbaccio. 
Nor  is  it  without  value  for  the  student  of  Italian 
manners.  The  list  of  romances  read  by  women  in  the 
fourteenth  century  throws  light  upon  Francesca's 
episode  in  Dante,  and  proves  that  the  title  Principe 
Gcdeotto  was  not  given  without  precedent  to  Boccaccio's 
own  writings.1  The  discourse  on  gentle  birth  in  the 
same  treatise  should  be  studied  in  illustration  of  the 
Florentine  conception  of  nobility.2  Boccaccio,  though 
he  follows  so  closely  in  time  upon  Dante,  already 
anticipates  the  democratic  theories  of  Poggio.3  Feudal 
feeling  was  extinct  in  the  bourgeoisie  of  the  great 
towns;  nor  had  the  experience  of  the  Neapolitan 
Court  suppressed  in  Boccaccio's  mind  the  pride  of  a 
Florentine  citizen.  At  the  same  time  he  felt  that 
contempt  of  the  literary  classes  for  the  common  folk 
which  was  destined  in  the  next  century  to  divide  the 
nation  and  to  check  the  development  of  its  vulgar  liter- 
ature. He  apologizes  for  explaining  Dante,  and  for 
bringing  poetry  down  to  the  level  of  the  feccia  plebeia, 
the  vulgo  indegno,  the  ingrati  meccanici,  and  so  forth  j 
It  remains  to  speak  of  yet  another  of  Boccaccio's 
minor  works,  the  Ninfale  Fiesolano.  This  is  a  tale 
in  octave  stanzas,  which,  under  a  veil  of  mythological 
romance,  relates  the  loves  of  a  young  man  and  a  nun, 
and  their  subsequent  tragic  ending.  It  owes  its  in- 

'  Laberinto  d'  Amore  (Firenze,  Caselli),  p.  153,  and  p.  127. 

«  Ibid.  p.  174.  »  See  Age  of  the  Despots,  p.  186,  note. 

4  See  Sonnets  vii.  and  viii.  of  the  Rime. 


126  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

terest  to  the  vivid  picture  of  seduction,  so  glowingly 
painted  as  to  betray  the  author's  personal  enjoyment 
of  the  motive.  The  story  is  thrown  back  into  a  time 
antecedent  to  Christianity  and  civil  life.  The  heroine, 
Mensola,  is  a  nymph  of  Diana;  the  hero,  Affrico, 
a  shepherd.  The  scene  is  laid  among  the  mountains 
above  Florence ;  and  when  Mensola  has  been  changed 
into  a  fountain  by  the  virgin  goddess,  whose  rites  she 
violated,  the  poem  concludes  with  a  myth  invented 
to  explain  the  founding  of  Fiesole.  Civil  society 
succeeds  to  the  savagery  of  the  woodland,  and  love  is 
treated  as  the  vestibule  to  culture.1  The  romantic 
and  legendary  portions  of  this  tale  are  ill-connected. 
The  versification  is  lax ;  and  except  in  the  long  episode 
of  Mensola's  seduction,  which  might  have  formed  a 
passage  of  contemporary  novel-writing,  the  genius  of 
Boccaccio  shines  with  clouded  luster.2  Yet  the  Nin- 
fale  Fiesolano  occupies  a  not  unimportant  place  in 
the  history  of  Italian  literature.  It  adapts  the  pastoral 
form  to  that  ideal  of  civility  dependent  upon  culture, 
which  took  so  strong  a  hold  upon  the  imagination  of 
the  cinque  cento.  Its  stanzas  are  a  forecast  of  the 
Arcadia  and  the  Orfeo. 

In  the  minor  poems  and  romances,  which  have 
here  been  passed  in  review,  except  perhaps  in  the 
Fiammetta,  Boccaccio  cannot  be  said  to  take  a  place 

>  The  same  motive  occurs  in  the  Ameto,  where  the  power  of  love  to 
refine  a  rustic  nature  is  treated  both  in  the  prose  romance  and  in  the 
interpolated  terza  rima  poems.  See  especially  the  song  of  Teogaper 
(Op.  Volg.  xv.  34). 

»  Boccaccio  breaks  the  style  and  becomes  obscenely  vulgar  at  times 
See  Parte  Quarta,  xxxvi.  xxxvii.,  Parte  Quinta,  xlv.  xlvi.  The  innuendoes 
of  the  Ugellino  and  the  Nicchio  are  here  repeated  in  figures  which  an- 
ticipate the  novels  and  capitoli  of  the  cinque  cento. 


THE    DECAMERON.  127 

among  European  writers  of  the  first  rank.  His  style 
is  prolix;  his  versification,  if  we  omit  the  Canzoni  a 
Ballo  and  some  sonnets,  is  slovenly;  nor  does  he  show 
exceptional  ability  in  the  conception  and  conduct  of 
his  stories.  He  is  strongest  when  he  paints  a  violent 
passion  or  describes  voluptuous  sensations,  weakest 
when  he  attempts  allegory  or  assumes  the  airs  of  a 
philosopher.  We  feel,  in  reading  these  productions  of 
his  earlier  manhood,  that  nearly  all  were  what  the 
Germans  call  Gelegenheits-gedicktc.  The  private  key 
is  lost  to  some  of  these  works,  which  were  intended  for 
the  ears  of  one  among  the  multitude.  On  others  it  is 
plainly  written  that  they  were  the  outpourings  of  a 
personal  desire,  the  self-indulgence  of  a  fancy  which 
reveled  in  imagined  sensuality,  using  literature  as  the 
safety-valve  for  subjective  longings.  They  lack  the 
calm  of  perfect  art,  the  full  light  falling  on  the  object 
from  without,  which  marks  a  poem  of  the  highest  order. 
From  these  romances  of  his  youth,  no  less  than  from 
the  Latin  treatises  of  his  maturity,  we  return  to  the 
Decameron  when  we  seek  to  place  Boccaccio  among 
the  classics.  Nothing  comparable  with  this  Human 
Comedy  for  universal  interest  had  appeared  in  modern 
Europe,  if  we  except  the  Divine  Comedy;  and  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  any  work  of  equal  scope  was 
given  to  the  world  before  the  theater  of  Shakspere  and 
the  comedies  of  Moliere.  Boccaccio,  though  he  paints 
the  surface  of  life,  paints  it  in  a  way  to  suggest  the 
inner  springs  of  character,  and  to  bring  the  motives  of 
action  vividly  before  us.  Quicquid  agunt  homines  is 
the  matter  of  his  book.  The  recoil  from  medieval 
principles  of  conduct,  which  gives  it  a  certain  air  of 


128  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

belonging  to  a  moment  rather  than  all  time,  was 
necessary  in  the  evolution  of  intellectual  freedom.  In 
this  respect,  again,  it  faithfully  reflected  the  Florentine 
temperament.  At  no  epoch  have  the  Italians  been 
sternly  and  austerely  pious.  Piety  with  them  is  a 
passionate  impulse  rather  than  a  deeply-reasoned  habit 
based  upon  conviction.  Their  true  nature  is  critical, 
susceptible  to  beauty,  quick  at  seizing  the  ridiculous 
and  exposing  shams,  suspicious  of  mysticism,  realistic, 
pleasure-loving,  practical.  These  qualities,  special  to 
the  Florentines,  but  shared  in  large  measure  by  the 
nation,  found  artistic  expression  in  the  Decameron., 
and  asserted  their  supremacy  in  the  literature  of  the 
Renaissance.  That  a  sublime  ideal,  unapprehended 
by  Boccaccio,  and  destined  to  remain  unrepresented  in 
the  future,  should  have  been  conceived  by  Dante; 
that  Petrarch  should  have  modulated  by  his  master- 
piece of  poetic  workmanship  from  the  key  of  the 
Divine  Comedy  to  that  of  the  Decameron;  that  one 
city  should  have  produced  three  such  men,  and  that 
one  half-century  should  have  witnessed  their  successive 
triumphs,  forms  the  great  glory  of  Florence,  and  is  one 
of  the  most  notable  facts  in  the  history  of  genius. 

It  remains  to  speak  about  Boccaccio's  prose,  and 
the  relation  of  his  style  to  that  of  other  trecentisti.  If 
we  seek  the  origins  of  Italian  prose,  we  find  them 
first  in  the  Franco-Italian  romances  of  the  Lombard 
period,  which  underwent  the  process  of  toscaneggiamento 
at  Florence,  next  in  books  of  morality  and  devotion, 
and  also  in  the  earlier  chronicles.  Among  the  Tus- 
canized  tales  of  chivalry  belonging  to  the  first  age 
of  Italian  literature  are  the  Conti  di  antichi  cavalien 


THIRTEENTH-CENTURY   PROSE.  129 

and  the  Tavola  Ritonda,  both  of  which  bear  traces 
of  translation  from  Provengal  sources. !  The  Novellino, 
of  which  mention  has  already  been  made,  betrays  the 
same  origin.  The  style  of  these  works  offers  a  pretty 
close  parallel  to  the  English  of  Sir  Thomas  Mallory. 
At  the  same  time  that  the  literature  of  France  was 
assuming  an  Italian  garb,  many  versions  of  Roman 
classics  appeared.  Orosius,  Vegetius,  Sallust,  with 
parts  of  Cicero,  Livy  and  Boethius  were  adapted  to 
popular  reading.  But  the  taste  of  the  time,  as  we 
have  already  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter,  inclined 
the  authors  of  these  works  to  make  selections  with  a 
view  to  moral  edification.  Their  object  was,  not  to 
present  the  ancients  in  a  modern  garb,  but  to  cull 
notable  examples  of  conduct  and  ethical  sentences 
from  the  works  that  found  most  favor  with  the  medi- 
eval intellect.  Passing  under  the  general  titles  of 
Fieri,  Giardini,  Tesori  and  Conviti — Fiori  difilosofi  & 
molto  saviy  Giardino  di  Consolazione,  Fiore  di  Ret- 
torica,  Fiore  del  parlar  gentile — these  collections 
supplied  the  laity  with  extracts  from  Latin  authors, 
and  extended  culture  to  the  people.  The  Libro  di 
Cato  might  be  chosen  as  a  fair  example  of  their 
scope.2  The  number  of  such  books,  ascribed  to 
Bono  Giamboni,  Brunette  Latini,  and  Guidotto  of 
Bologna,  proves  that  an  extensive  public  was  eager 
for  instruction  of  this  sort;  and  it  is  reasonable  to 
believe  that  they  were  studied  by  the  artisans  of 

1  Students  may  consult  the  valuable  work  of  Vincenzo  Nannucci, 
Manuale  delta  Letteratura  del  primo  secolo  della  Lingua  Italia.no 
Firenze,  Barbera,  1874.  The  second  volume  contains  copious  speci 
mens  of  thirteenth-century  prose. 

*  Nannucci,  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  95. 


130  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

central  Italy.  The  bass-reliefs  and  frescoes  of  incipient 
Italian  art,  the  pavement  of  the  Sienese  Cathedral, 
the  Palazzo  della  Ragione  at  Padua,  bear  traces  of  the 
percolation  through  all  social  strata  of  this  literature. 
A  more  important  work  of  style  was  the  De  Regimine 
Principum,  of  Egidio  Colonna,  translated  from  the 
French  version  by  an  unknown  Tuscan  hand;  while 
Giamboni's  Florentine  version  of  Latini's  Tesoro  in- 
troduced the  erudition  of  the  most  learned  grammarian 
of  his  age  to  the  Italians.  Contemporaneously  with 
this  growth  of  vernacular  treatises  on  rhetorical  and 
ethical  subjects,  we  may  assume  that  memoirs  and 
chronicles  began  to  be  written  in  the  vulgar  tongue. 
But  so  much  doubt  has  recently  been  thrown  upon 
the  earliest  monuments  of  Italian  historiography  that 
it  must  here  suffice  to  indicate  the  change  which  was 
undoubtedly  taking  place  in  this  branch  also  of  com- 
position toward  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century.1 
Literature  of  all  kinds  yielded  to  the  first  strong 
impact  of  the  native  idiom.  Epistles,  for  example, 
whether  of  private  or  of  public  import,  were  now 
occasionally  written  in  Italian,  as  can  be  proved 
by  reference  to  the  published  letters  of  Guittone 
d'Arezzo.2 

The  works  hitherto  mentioned  belong  to  the  latter 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century.     Their  style,  speaking 

1  The  journals  of  Matteo  Spinelli,  ascribed  to  an  Apulian  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  were  long  accepted  as  the  earliest  vernacular  at- 
tempt at  history  in  prose.  It  has  lately  been  suggested,  with  good  show 
of  argument,  that  they  are  fabrications  of  the  sixteenth  century.  With 
regard  to  the  similar  doubts  affecting  the  Malespini  Chronicles  and  Dino 
Compagni,  I  may  refer  to  my  discussion  of  this  question  in  the  first  vol 
ume  of  this  work,  Age  of  the  Despots,  pp.  251,  262-273. 

•  Nannucci,  op.  cit.  p.  137. 


FOURTEENTH-CENTURY   PROSE.  131 

generally,  is  dry  and  tentative.  Except  in  the  versions 
of  French  romances,  which  borrow  grace  from  their 
originals,  we  do  not  find  in  them  artistic  charm  of 
diction.  The  Fiori  and  Giardini  are  little  better  than 
commonplace  books,  in  which  the  author's  personality 
is  lost  beneath  a  mass  of  extracts  and  citations.  The 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  witnessed  the 
growth  of  a  new  Italian  prose.  Of  this  second  stage, 
the  masterpieces  are  Villani's  Chronicle,  Dante's  Vita 
Nuavciy  the  Fioretti  di  S.  Francesco,  the  Leggende  del 
Santi  Padri  of  Domenico  Cavalca,  and  Jacopo  Pass- 
avanti's  Specchio  delta  vera  Penitenzal  These  writers 
have  no  lack  of  individuality.  Their  mind  moves  in 
their  style,  and  gives  a  personal  complexion  to  their 
utterance.  The  chief  charm  of  their  manner,  so  far  as 
it  is  common  to  characters  so  diverse,  is  its  grave  and 
childlike  spontaneity.  For  vividness  of  description,  for 
natural  simplicity  of  phrase,  and  for  that  amiable  gar- 
rulity which  rounds  a  picture  by  innumerable  details 
and  unconscious  touches  of  graphic  force,  not  one  of 
the  books  of  this  period  surpasses  the  Fioretti.  Nor 
are  the  Leggende  of  Cavalca  less  admirable.  Modern, 
especially  Northern,  students  may  discover  too  much 
suavity  and  unction  in  the  writer's  tone — a  superfluity 
of  sweetness  which  fatigues,  a  caressing  tenderness  that 
clogs.  After  reading  a  few  pages,  we  lay  the  book 
down,  and  wonder  whether  it  could  really  have  been  a 
grown  man,  and  not  a  cherub  flown  from  Fra  Angelico's 
Paradise,  who  composed  it.  This  infantine  note  be- 

1  Of  Villani's  Chronicle  I  have  already  spoken  sufficiently  in  the  Age 
of  the  Despots,  chap.  5,  and  of  the  Vita  Nuova  in  this  chapter  (above, 
pp.  67-70X 


132  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

longs  to  the  cloister  and  the  pulpit.  It  matches  the 
simple  credulity  of  the  narrator,  and  well  befits  the 
miracles  he  loves  to  record.  We  seem  to  hear  a  good 
old  monk  gossiping  to  a  party  of  rosy-cheeked  novices, 
like  those  whom  Sodoma  painted  in  his  frescoes  of 
S.  Benedict  at  Monte  OH  veto.  It  need  hardly  be  ob- 
served that  neither  in  Villani's  nor  in  Dante's  prose  do 
we  find  the  same  puerility.  But  all  the  trecentisti 
have  a  common  character  of  limpidity,  simplicity,  and 
unaffected  grace. 

The  difficulties  under  which  even  the  best  Italian 
authors  labor  while  using  their  own  language,  incline 
them  to  an  exaggerated  admiration  for  these  pearls  of 
the  trecento.  They  look  back  with  envy  to  an  age 
when  men  could  write  exactly  as  they  thought  and  felt 
and  spoke,  without  the  tyranny  of  the  Vocabolario  or 
the  fear  of  an  Academy  before  their  eyes.  We,  with 
whom  the  literary  has  always  closely  followed  the 
spoken  language,  and  who  have,  practically  speaking, 
no  dialects,  while  we  recognize  the  purity  of  that  in- 
comparably transparent  manner,  cannot  comprehend 
that  it  should  be  held  up  for  imitation  in  the  present 
age.  To  paint  like  Giotto  would  be  easier  than  tc 
write  like  Passavanti.  The  conditions  of  life  and  the 
modes  of  thought  are  so  altered  that  the  style  of  the 
trecento  will  not  lend  itself  to  modern  requirements. 

Among  the  prosaists  of  the  fourteenth  century— 
Cavalca,  Villani,  the  author  of  the  Fioretti,  and  Pass- 
avanti— Boccaccio  meets  us  with  a  sudden  surprise. 
They  aimed  at  finding  the  readiest  and  most  appro- 
priate words  to  convey  their  meaning  in  the  simplest, 
most  effective  manner.  Without  artistic  purpose, 


BOCCACCIO* S   PROSE.  133 

without  premeditation,  without  side-glances  at  the 
classics,  they  wrote  straightforward  from  their  heart. 
There  is  little  composition  or  connection  in  their  work, 
no  molding  of  paragraphs  or  rounding  of  phrases, 
no  oratorical  development,  no  gradation  of  tone.  Boc- 
caccio, on  the  contrary,  sought  to  give  the  fullness  and 
sonority  of  Latin  to  the  periods  of  Italian  prose.  He 
had  the  Ciceronian  cadence  and  the  labyrinthine  sen- 
tences of  Livy  in  view.  By  art  of  style  he  was  bent 
on  rendering  the  vulgar  language  a  fit  vehicle  for 
learning,  rhetoric,  and  history.  In  order  to  make  it 
clear  what  sorts  of  changes  he  introduced,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  compare  his  prose  with  that  of  his  con- 
temporaries. Dante  used  the  following  words  to  de- 
scribe his  first  meeting  with  Beatrice l : 

Move  fiate  gia,  appresso  al  mio  nascimento,  era  tomato  lo  cielo 
della  luce  quasi  ad  un  medesimo  punto,  quanto  alia  sua  propria 
girazione,  quando  alii  miei  occhi  apparve  prima  la  gloriosa  Donna 
della  mia  mente,  la  quale  fu  chiamata  da  mold  Beatrice,  i  quali  non 
sapeano  che  si  chiamare.  Ella  era  gik  in  questa  vita  stata  tanto  che 
nel  suo  tempo  lo  cielo  stellate  era  mosso  verso  la  parte  d'  oriente 
delle  dodici  parti  1*  una  d*  un  grado:  si  che  quasi  dal  principio  del 
suo  anno  nono  apparve  a  me,  ed  io  la  vidi  quasi  alia  fine  del  mio 
nono  anno. 

Boccaccio,  relating  his  first  glimpse  of  Fiammetta 
on  April,  17,  1341,  spins  the  following  cocoon  of 
verbiage : 2 

Avvenne  che  un  giorno,  la  cui  prima  ora  Saturno  avea  signor- 
eggiata,  essendo  gia  Febo  co*  suoi  cavalli  al  seclecimo  grado  del 
celestiale  Montone  pervenuto,  e  nel  quale  il  glorioso  partimento  del 
figliuolo  di  Giove  dagli  spogliati  regni  di  Plutone  si  celebrava,  io, 
della  presente  opera  componitore,  mi  trovai  in  un  grazioso  e  bel 

•  Vita  Nuova,  cap.  2. 

»  Ftlocopo,  Op.  Volg.  vii.  4. 


134  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

tempio  in  Partenope,  nominato  da  colui  che  per  deificarsi  sostenne 
che  fosse  fatto  di  lui  sacrificio  sopra  la  grata,  e  quivi  con  canto  pieno 
di  dolce  melodia  ascoltava  1'  uficio  che  in  tale  giorno  si  canta,  cele- 
brato  da'  sacerdoti  successori  di  colui  che  prima  la  corda  cinse  umil- 
mente  esaltando  la  povertade  quella  seguendo. 

Dante's  style  is  analytic  and  direct.  The  sentences 
follow  each  other  naturally ;  and  though  the  language 
is  stiff,  from  scrupulous  precision,  and  in  one  place 
intentionally  obscure,  it  is  free  from  affectation.  Boc- 
caccio aims  at  a  synthetic  presentation  of  all  he  means 
to  say ;  and  he  calls  nothing  by  its  right  name,  if  he 
can  devise  a  periphrasis.  The  breathless  period  pants 
its  labored  clauses  out,  and  dwindles  to  a  lame  con- 
clusion. The  Filocopo  was,  however,  an  immature 
production.  In  order  to  do  its  author  justice,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  compare  his  style  with  a  graceful 
piece  of  fourteenth-century  composition,  I  will  select  a 
passage  from  the  Fioretti  di  S.  Francesco,  and  place  it 
beside  one  taken  from  the  first  novel  of  the  De- 
cameron. This  is  the  episode  of  S.  Anthony  preaching 
to  the  fishes * : 

E  detto  ch*  egli  ebbe  cosi,  subitamente  venne  alia  riva  a  lui  tanta 
moltitudine  di  pesci,  grandi,  piccoli  e  mezzani,  che  mai  in  quel  mare 
ne  in  quel  fiume  non  ne  fu  veduta  si  grande  moltitudine:  e  tutti 
teneano  i  capi  fuori  dell'  acqua,  e  tutti  stavano  attenti  verso  la  fac- 
cia  di  santo  Antonio,  e  tutti  in  grandissima  pace  e  mansuetudine  e 
ordine:  imperocche  dinanzi  e  piu  presso  alia  riva  stavano  i  pesciolini 
minori,  e  dopo  loro  stavano  i  pesci  mezzani,  poi  di  dietro,  dov'  era 
1'  acqua  piu  profonda,  stavano  i  pesci  maggiori.  Essendo  dunque  in 
cotale  ordine  e  disposizione  allogati  i  pesci,  santo  Antonio  comincib 
a  predicare  solennemente,  e  disse  cosi :  Fratelli  miei  pesci,  molto 
siete  tenuti,  secondo  la  vostra  possibilitade,  di  ringraziare  il  nostro 
Creatore,  che  v'  ha  dato  cosi  nobile  elemento  per  vostra  abitazione; 
sicche,  come  vi  piace,  avete  1*  acque  dolci  e  salse;  c  havvi  dati  molti 

'  Fioretti  di  S.  Francesco  (Venezia.  1853).  p.  104. 


THE    FIORETTI  AND   DECAMERON.  135 

rifugii  a  schifare  le  tempeste;  havvi  ancora  dato  elemento  chiaro  e 

trasparente,  e  cibo,  per  lo  quale  voi  possiate  vivere,  etc.,  etc 

A  queste  e  simiglianti  parole  e  ammaestramenti  di  santo  Antonio, 
cominciarono  li  pesci  ad  aprire  la  bocca,  inchinaronli  i  capi,  e  con 
questi  ed  altri  segnali  di  riverenza,  secondo  li  modi  a  loro  possibili, 
laudarono  Iddio. 

This  is  a  portion  of  the  character  of  Ser  Ciapel- 
letto: 

Era  questo  Ciapelletto  di  questa  vita.  Egli  essendo  notajo,  avea 
grandissima  vergogna  quando  uno  de'  suoi  strumenti  (come  che  pochi 
ne  facesse)  fosse  altro  che  falso  trovato;  de'  quali  tanti  avrebbe  fatti, 
di  quanti  fosse  stato  richesto,  e  quelli  piu  volentieri  in  dono,  che 
alcun  altro  grandemente  salariato.  Testimonianze  false  con  sommo 
diletto  diceva  richesto  e  non  richesto;  e  dandosi  a'  que'  tempi  in 
Francia  a'  saramenti  grandissima  fede,  non  curandosi  fargli  falsi, 
tante  quistioni  malvagiamente  vincea,  a  quante  a  giurare  di  dire  il 
vero  sopra  la  sua  fede  era  chiamato.  Aveva  oltre  modo  piacere,  e 
forte  vi  studiava,  in  commettere  tra  amici  e  parenti  e  qualunque  altra 
persona  mali  et  inimicizie  e  scandali;  de'  quali  quanto  maggiori  mali 
vedeva  seguire,  tanto  piu  d'  allegrezza  prendea.  Invitato  ad  uno 
omicidio  o  a  qualunque  altra  rea  cosa,  senza  negarlo  mai,  volentero- 
samente  v*  andava;  e  piu  volte  a  fedire  et  ad  uccidere  uomini  colle 
proprie  mani  si  trovo  volentieri. 

These  examples  will  suffice  to  show  how  Boccaccio 
distinguished  himself  from  the  trecentisti  in  general. 
When  his  style  attained  perfection  in  the  Decameron, 
it  had  lost  the  pedantry  of  his  first  manner,  and  com- 
bined the  brevity  of  the  best  contemporary  writers 
with  rhetorical  smoothness  and  intricacy.  The  artful 
structure  of  the  period,  and  the  cadences  of  what 
afterwards  came  to  be  known  as  "  numerous  prose," 
were  carried  to  perfection.  Still,  though  he  was  the 
earliest  writer  of  a  scientific  style,  Boccaccio  failed  to 
exercise  a  paramount  influence  over  the  language  un- 
til the  age  of  the  Academies.1  The  writers  of  the 

1  See  below,  the  chapter  on  the  Purists. 


136  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

fifteenth  century,  partly  no  doubt  because  these  were 
chiefly  men  of  the  people,  appear  to  have  developed 
their  manner  out  of  the  material  of  the  trecento  in 
general,  modified  by  contemporary  usage.  This  is 
manifest  in  the  Reali  di  Francia,  a  work  of  consider- 
able stylistic  power,  which  cannot  probably  be  dated 
earlier  than  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
novelist  Masuccio  modeled  his  diction,  so  far  as  he  was 
able,  on  the  type  of  the  Decameron,  and  Alberti  owed 
much  to  the  study  of  such  works  as  the  Fiammetta 
Yet,  speaking  broadly,  neither  the  excellences  nor  the 
defects  of  Boccaccio  found  devoted  imitators  until  the 
epoch  when  the  nation  at  large  turned  their  atten- 
tion to  the  formation  of  a  common  Italian  style.  It 
was  then,  in  the  days  of  Bembo  and  Sperone,  that 
Boccaccio  took  rank  with  Petrarch  as  an  infallible 
authority  on  points  of  language.  The  homage  ren- 
dered at  that  period  to  the  Decameron  decided  the 
destinies  of  Italian  prose,  and  has  since  been  deplored 
by  critics  who  believe  Boccaccio  to  have  established 
a  false  standard  of  taste.1  This  is  a  question  which 
must  be  left  to  the  Italians  to  decide.  One  thing, 
however,  is  clear;  that  a  nation  schooled  by  humanistic 
studies  of  a  Latin  type,  divided  by  their  dialects,  and 
removed  by  the  advance  of  culture  beyond  the  influ- 
ences of  the  purer  trecentisti,  found  in  the  rhetorical 
diction  of  the  Decameron  a  common  model  better 
suited  to  their  taste  and  capacity  than  the  simple  style 
of  the  Villani  could  have  furnished. 


>  See  Capponi's  Storia  della  Repubblica  di  Firente,  lib.  iii.  cap.  9, 
for  a  very  energetic  statement  of  this  view. 


CLOSE    OF    THE    TRECENTO.  137 

Boccaccio  died  in  1375,  seventeen  months  after  the 
death  at  Arqua  of  his  master,  Petrarch.  The  painter 
Andrea  Orcagna  died  about  the  same  period.  With 
these  three  great  artists  the  genius  of  medieval  Flor- 
ence sank  to  sleep.  A  temporary  torpor  fell  upon  the 
people,  who  during  the  next  half  century  produced 
nothing  of  marked  originality  in  literature  and  art 
The  Middle  Age  had  passed  away.  The  Renaissance 
was  still  in  preparation.  When  Boccaccio  breathed 
his  last,  men  felt  that  the  elder  sources  of  inspiration 
had  failed,  and  that  no  more  could  be  expected  from 
the  spirit  of  the  previous  centuries.  Heaven  and  hell, 
the  sanctuaries  of  the  soul,  the  garden  of  this  earth, 
had  been  traversed.  The  tentative  essays  and  scat- 
tered preludings,  the  dreams  and  visions,  the  prepara- 
tory efforts  of  all  previous  modern  literatures,  had 
been  completed,  harmonized  and  presented  to  the 
world  in  the  master-works  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and 
Boccaccio.  What  remained  but  to  make  a  new  start  ? 
This  step  forward  or  aside  was  now  to  be  taken  in  the 
Classical  Revival.  Well  might  Sacchetti  exclaim  in 
that  canzone1  which  is  at  once  Boccaccio's  funeral 


•  See  Rime  di  M.  Cino  da  Pistoja  t  d'  altri  del  Secolo  xiv.  (Firenze, 
Barbera,  1862),  p.  528.     It  begins: 

Ora  e  mancata  ogni  poesia 
E  vote  son  le  case  di  Parnaso. 
It  contains  the  famous  lines: 

Come  deggio  sperar  che  surga  Dante 
Che  gia  chi  il  sappia  legger  non  si  trova  ? 
E  Giovanni  che  e  morto  ne  fe  scola. 

Not  less  interesting  is  Sacchetti's  funeral  Ode  for  Petrarch  (ibid.  p.  517). 
Both  show  a  keen  sense  of  the  situation  with  respect  to  the  decline  of 
literature. 


'38 


RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 


dirge  and  also  the  farewell  of  Florence  to  the  four- 
teenth century: 


Sonati  sono  i  corn! 

D'  ogni  parte  a  ricolta; 

La  stagione  6  rivolta: 

Se  tornera  non  so,  ma  credo  tardi. 


CHAPTER   III. 


THE     TRANSITION. 


The  Church,  Chivalry,  the  Nation— The  National  Element  in  Italian 
Literature — Florence — Italy  between  1373  and  1490 — Renascent 
Nationality — Absorption  in  Scholarship — Vernacular  Literature  fol- 
lows an  obscure  Course — Final  Junction  of  the  Humanistic  and  Pop- 
ular Currents — Renascence  of  Italian — The  Italian  Temperament 
— Importance  of  the  Quattrocento — Sacchetti's  Novels — Ser  Giovan- 
ni's Pecorone — Sacchetti's  and  Ser  Giovanni's  Poetry  —  Lyrics  of 
the  Villa  and  the  Piazza — Nicolb  Soldanieri — Alesso  Donati — His 
Realistic  Poems — Followers  of  Dante  and  Petrarch — Political  Poetry 
of  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines — Fazio  degli  Uberti — Saviozzo  da  Siena 
— Elegies  on  Dante — Sacchetti's  Guelf  Poems — Advent  of  the  Bour- 
geoisie— Discouragement  of  the  Age — Fazio's  Dittamondo — Rome 
and  Alvernia — Frezzi's  Quadriregio — Dantesque  Imitation — Blend- 
ing of  Classical  and  Medieval  Motives — Matteo  Palmieri's  Cittd  di  Vita 
—The  Fate  of  Terza  Rima — Catherine  of  Siena — Her  Letters — S. 
Bernardino's  Sermons — Salutati's  Letters — Alessandra  degli  Strozzi — 
Florentine  Annalists — Giov.  Cavalcanti — Corio's  History  of  Milan — 
Matarazzo's  Chronicle  of  Perugia — Masuccio  and  his  Novellino — His 
Style  and  Genius — Alberti — Born  in  Exile — His  Feeling  for  Italian — 
Enthusiasm  for  the  Roman  Past — The  Treatise  on  the  Family — Its 
Plan — Digression  on  the  Problem  of  its  Authorship — Pandolfini  or 
Alberti — The  Deiciarchia — Tranquillitd  dell'  Animo — Teogenio — 
Alberti's  Religion — Dedication  of  the  Treatise  on  Painting — Minor 
Works  in  Prose  on  Love — Ecatomfila,  Amiria,  Deifiria,  etc. — Miso- 
gynism — Novel  of  ippolito  and  Leonora — Alberti's  Poetry — Review 
of  Alberti's  Character  and  his  Relation  to  the  Age — Francesco  Co- 
lonna — The  Hypnerotomachia  Poliphili — Its  Style — Its  Importance 
as  a  Work  of  the  Transition — A  Romance  of  Art,  Love,  Humanism 
— The  Allegory — Polia — Antiquity — Relation  of  this  Book  to  Boc- 
caccio and  Valla — It  Foreshadows  the  Renaissance. 

THE  two  preceding  chapters  will  have  made  it  clear 
that  the  Church,  Chivalry,  and  the  Nation  contributed 


140  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

their  several  quotas  to  the  growth  of  Italian  literature. 
The  ecclesiastical  or  religious  element,  so  triumphantly 
expressed  in  the  Divine  Comedy,  was  not  peculiar  to 
the  Italians.  They  held  it  in  common  with  the  whole 
of  Christendom;  and  though  the  fabric  of  the  Roman 
Church  took  form  in  Italy,  though  the  race  gave 
S.  Francis,  S.  Thomas,  and  S.  Bonaventura  to  the 
militia  of  the  medieval  faith,  still  the  Italians  as  a 
nation  were  not  specifically  religious.  Piety,  which 
is  quite  a  different  thing  from  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion, was  never  the  truest  and  sincerest  accent  of  their 
genius.  Had  it  been  so,  the  history  of  Latin  Chris- 
tianity would  have  followed  another  course,  and  the 
schism  of  the  sixteenth  century  might  have  been 
avoided. 

The  chivalrous  element  they  shared,  at  a  consider- 
able disadvantage,  with  the  rest  of  feudal  Europe. 
Chivalry  was  not  indigenous  to  Italian  soil,  nor  did  it 
ever  flourish  there.  The  literature  which  it  produced 
in  France,  became  Italian  only  when  the  Guidi  and 
Dante  gave  it  philosophical  significance.  Petrarch, 
who  represents  this  motive,  as  Dante  represents  the 
ecclesiastical,  generalized  Provencal  poetry.  His  Can- 
zoniere  cannot  be  styled  a  masterpiece  of  chivalrous 
art.  Its  spirit  is  modern  and  human  in  a  wider  and 
more  comprehensive  sense. 

To  characterize  the  national  strain  in  this  complex 

•  I  may  refer  to  the  Age  of  the  Despots,  2nd  edition,  pp.  58-65,  for  a 
brief  review  of  the  circumstances  under  which  the  Nation  defined  itself 
against  the  Church  and  the  Empire — the  ecclesiastical  and  feudal  01 
chivalrous  principles — during  the  Wars  of  Investiture  and  Independence. 
In  Carducci's  essay  Dello  Svolgimento  delta  Letteratura  nazionale  will 
be  found  an  eloquent  and  succinct  exposition  of  the  views  I  have  at- 
tempted to  express  in  these  paragraphs. 


NATIONAL   ITALIAN  ELEMENT.  I A I 

pedigree  of  culture  is  no  easy  task — chiefly  because  it 
manifested  itself  under  two  apparently  antagonistic 
forms;  first  in  the  recovery  of  the  classics  by  the 
scholars  of  the  fifteenth  century;  secondly  in  the  por- 
traiture of  Italian  character  and  temperament  by 
writers  of  romance  and  fiction.  The  divergence  of 
these  two  main  currents  of  literary  energy  upon  the 
close  of  the  middle  ages,  and  their  junction  in  the 
prime  of  the  Renaissance,  are  the  topics  of  my  present 
volume. 

We  have  seen  how  tenaciously  the  Italians  clung 
to  memories  of  ancient  Rome,  and  how  their  history 
deprived  them  of  that  epical  material  which  started 
modern  literature  among  the  northern  races.  While 
the  vulgar  language  was  being  formed  from  the 
dialects  into  which  rustic  Latin  had  divided,  a  new 
nationality  grew  into  shape  by  an  analogous  process 
out  of  the  remnants  of  the  old  Italic  population,  fused 
with  recent  immigrants.  Absorbing  Greek  blood  in 
the  south  and  Teutonic  in  the  north,  this  composite 
race  maintained  the  ascendancy  of  the  Romanized 
people,  in  obedience  to  laws  whereby  the  prevalent 
and  indigenous  strain  outlives  and  assimilates  ingredi- 
ents from  without.  Owing  to  a  variety  of  causes, 
among  which  must  be  reckoned  geographical  isolation 
and  imperfect  Lombard  occupation,  the  purest  Italic 
stock  survived  upon  the  Tuscan  plains  and  highlands, 
between  the  Tyrrhene  Sea  and  the  Apennines,  and 
where  the  Arno  and  the  Tiber  start  together  from  the 
mountains  of  Arezzo.  This  region  was  the  cradle  of 
the  new  Italian  language,  the  stronghold  of  the  new 
Italian  nation.  Its  center,  political,  commercial  and 


142  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

intellectual,  was  Florence,  which  gave  birth  to  the 
three  great  poets  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Though 
Florence  developed  her  institutions  later  than  the 
Lombard  communes,  she  maintained  a  civic  indepen- 
dence longer  than  any  State  but  Venice;  and  her 
popolo  may  be  regarded  as  the  type  of  the  popular 
Italian  element.  Here  the  genius  of  Italy  became 
conscious  of  itself,  and  here  the  people  found  a 
spokesman  in  Boccaccio.  Abandoning  ecclesiastical 
and  feudal  traditions,  Boccaccio  concentrated  his  force 
upon  the  delineation  of  his  fellow-countrymen  as  he 
had  learned  to  know  them.  The  Italians  of  the  new 
age  start  into  distinctness .  in  his  work,  with  the 
specific  qualities  they  were  destined  to  maintain  and 
to  mature  during  the  next  two  centuries.  Thus 
Boccaccio  fully  represents  one  factor  of  what  I  have 
called  the  national  element.  At  the  same  time,  he 
occupies  a  hardly  less  important  place  in  relation  to 
the  other  or  the  humanistic  factor.  Like  his  master 
Petrarch,  he  pronounced  with  ardor  and  decision  for 
that  scholarship  which  restored  the  link  between  the 
present  and  the  past  of  the  Italian  race.  Indepen- 
dently of  their  achievements  in  modern  literature,  we 
have  to  regard  the  humanistic  efforts  of  these  two 
great  writers  as  a  sign  that  the  national  element  had 
asserted  itself  in  antagonism  to  the  Church  and 
chivalry. 

The  recovery  of  the  classics  was,  in  truth,  the 
decisive  fact  in  Italian  evolution.  Having  attained 
full  consciousness  in  the  Florence  of  Dante's  age,  the 
people  set  forth  in  search  of  their  spiritual  patrimony. 
They  found  it  in  the  libraries.  They  became  pos- 


RECOVERY   OF  CLASSICS.  143 

sessed  of  it  through  the  labors  of  the  scholars.  Ital- 
ian literature  during  the  first  three  quarters  of  the 
fifteenth  century  merged,  so  far  as  polite  society  was 
concerned,  in  Humanism,  the  history  of  which  has 
already  been  presented  to  the  reader  in  the  second 
volume  of  this  work.1  For  a  hundred  years,  from  the 
publication  of  the  Decameron  in  1373  to  the  publica- 
tion of  Poliziano's  Stanze,  the  genius  of  Italy  was 
engaged  in  an  exploratory  pilgrimage,  the  ultimate 
end  of  which  was  the  restoration  of  the  national  in- 
heritance in  ancient  Rome.  This  process  of  renascent 
classicism,  which  was  tantamount  to  ranascent  nation- 
ality, retarded  the  growth  of  the  vulgar  literature. 
Yet  it  was  imperatively  demanded  not  only  by  the 
needs  of  Europe  at  large,  but  more  particularly  and 
urgently  by  the  Italians  themselves,  who,  unlike  the 
other  modern  races,  had  no  starting-point  but  ancient 
Rome.  The  immediate  result  of  the  humanistic  move- 
ment was  the  separation  of  the  national  element  into 
two  sections,  learned  and  popular,  Latin  and  Italian. 
The  common  people,  who  had  repeated  Dante's 
Canzoni,  and  whose  life  Boccaccio  had  portrayed  in 
the  Decameron,  were  now  divided  from  the  rising 
class  of  scholars  and  professors.  Cultivated  persons 
of  all  ranks  despised  Italian,  and  spent  their  time  in 
studies  beyond  the  reach  of  the  laity.  Like  some 
mountain  rivers  after  emerging  from  the  highlands  of 
their  origin,  the  vernacular  literature  passed  as  it  were 
for  a  season  underground,  and  lost  itself  in  unexplored 
ravines.  Absorbed  into  the  masses  of  the  people,  it 
continued  an  obscure  but  by  no  means  insignificant 

•  Revival  of  Learning. 


144  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

course,  whence  it  was  destined  to  reappear  at  the  right 
moment,  when  the  several  constituents  of  the  nation 
had  attained  the  sense  of  intellectual  unity.  This 
sense  of  unity  was  the  product  of  the  classical  revival; 
for  the  activity  of  the  wandering  professors  and  the 
fanatical  enthusiasm  for  the  ancients  were  needed  to 
create  a  common  consciousness,  a  common  standard  of 
taste  and  intelligence  in  the  peninsula.  It  must  in  this 
connection  be  remembered  that  the  vernacular  litera- 
ture of  the  fourteenth  century,  though  it  afterwards 
became  the  glory  of  Italy  as  a  whole,  was  originally 
Florentine.  The  medium  prepared  by  the  scholars 
was  demanded  in  order  that  the  Tuscan  classics  should 
be  accepted  by  the  nation  as  their  own.  Toward  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  a  fusion  between  the  hu- 
manistic and  the  vulgar  literatures  was  made;  and  this 
is  the  renascence  of  Italian — no  longer  Tuscan,  but 
participated  by  the  race  at  large.  The  poetry  of  the 
people  then  received  a  form  refined  by  classic  learning; 
and  the  two  sections  of  what  I  have  called  the  national 
element,  joined  to  produce  the  genuine  Italian  culture 
of  the  golden  age. 

It  is  necessary,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  to  insist 
upon  this  point,  which  forms  the  main  motive  of  my 
present  theme.  After  the  death  of  Boccaccio  the 
history  of  Italian  literature  is  the  history  of  that 
national  element  which  distinguished  itself  from  the 
ecclesiastical  and  the  chivalrous,  and  at  last  in  the 
Decameron  asserted  its  superiority  over  both.  But 
the  stream  of  intellectual  energy  bifurcates.  During 
the  fifteenth  century,  the  Latin  instincts  of  the  new 
Italic  people  found  vigorous  expansion  in  the  human- 


TRIUMPH   OF  NATIONAL   ELEMENT.  14$ 

istic  movement,  while  the  vernacular  literature  carried 
on  a  fitful  and  obscure,  but  potent,  growth  among  the 
proletariate.  At  the  end  of  that  century,  both  currents, 
the  learned  and  the  popular,  the  classical  and  the 
modern,  reunited  on  a  broader  plane.  The  nation, 
educated  by  scholarship  and  brought  to  a  sense  of  its 
identity,  resumed  the  vulgar  tongue;  and  what  had 
hitherto  been  Tuscan,  now  became  Italian.  In  this 
renascence  neither  the  religious  nor  the  feudal  prin- 
ciple regained  firm  hold  upon  the  race.  Their  influ- 
ence is  still  discernible,  however,  in  the  lyrics  of  the 
Petrarchisti  and  the  epics  of  Orlando;  for  nothing 
which  has  once  been  absorbed  into  a  people's  thought 
is  wholly  lost.  How  they  were  transmuted  by  the 
action  of  the  genuine  Italic  genius,  triumphant  now 
upon  all  quarters  of  the  field,  will  appear  in  the  sequel 
of  these  volumes ;  while  it  remains  for  another  work  to 
show  in  what  way,  under  the  influences  of  the  Counter- 
Reformation,  both  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  chivalrous 
elements  reasserted  themselves  for  a  brief  moment  in 
Tasso.  Still  even  in  Tasso  we  recognize  the  Italian 
courtier  rather  than  the  knight  or  the  ascetic.  For  the 
rest,  it  is  clear  that  the  spirit  of  Boccaccio — that  is,  the 
spirit  of  the  Florentine  people — refined  by  humanistic 
discipline  and  glorified  by  the  reawakening  of  Italy  to 
a  sense  of  intellectual  unity,  determined  the  character 
of  literature  during  its  most  brilliant  period.1 

•  It  is  not  quite  exact,  though  convenient,  to  identify  Dante,  Petrarch 
and  Boccaccio  severally  with  the  religious,  chivalrous  and  national  prin- 
ciples of  which  I  have  been  speaking.  Petrarch  stands  midway.  With 
Dante  he  shares  the  chivalrous,  with  Boccaccio  the  humanistic  side  of 
the  national  element.  Though  Boccaccio  anticipates  in  his  work  the 
literature  of  the  Renaissance,  yet  Petrarch  was  certainly  not  less  influ- 


146  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Many  peculiarities  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy,  and 
of  the  Renaissance  in  general,  as  communicated 
through  Italians  to  Europe,  can  be  explained  by  this 
emergence  of  the  national  Italic  temperament.  Political 
and  positive;  keenly  sensitive  to  natural  beauty,  and 
gifted  with  a  quick  artistic  faculty ;  neither  persistently 
religious  nor  profoundly  speculative ;  inclined  to  skep- 
ticism, but  accepting  the  existing  order  with  sarcastic 
acquiescence;  ironical  and  humorous  rather  than  sa- 
tirical; sensuous  in  feeling,  realistic  in  art,  rhetorical 
in  literature;  abhorring  mysticism  and  ill-fashioned 
for  romantic  exaltation;  worldly,  with  a  broad  and 
genial  toleration;  refined  in  taste  and  social  con- 
duct, but  violent  in  the  indulgence  of  personal  pro- 
clivities; born  old  in  contrast  with  the  youth  of  the 
Teutonic  races ;  educated  by  long  experience  to  expect 
a  morrow  differing  in  no  essentials  from  to-day  or 
yesterday ;  demanding,  therefore,  from  the  moment  all 
that  it  can  yield  of  satisfaction  to  the  passions — the 
Italians,  thus  constituted,  in  their  vigorous  reaction 
against  the  middle  ages,  secularized  the  Papacy,  ab- 
sorbed the  Paganism  of  the  classics,  substituted  an 
aesthetic  for  an  ethical  ideal,  democratized  society,  and 
opened  new  horizons  for  pioneering  energy  in  all  the 
fields  of  knowledge.  The  growth  of  their  intelligence 
was  precocious  and  fore-doomed  to  a  sudden  check;  nor 
was  it  to  be  expected  that  their  solutions  of  the  deepest 
problems  should  satisfy  races  of  a  different  fiber  and  a 
posterity  educated  on  the  scientific  methods  of  investi- 

cntial  as  an  authority  in  style.  Ariosto  represents  the  fusion  of  both  sec 
lions  of  the  national  element  in  literature — Italian  is  distinguished  from 
Tuscan. 


THE    QUATTROCENTO.  147 

gation.  Unexpected  factors  were  added  to  the  general 
calculation  by  the  German  Reformation  and  the  politi- 
cal struggles  which  preceded  the  French  Revolution. 
Vet  the  influence  of  this  Italian  temperament,  in  form- 
ing and  preparing  the  necessary  intellectual  medium  in 
modern  Europe,  can  hardly  be  exaggerated. 

When  the  Italian  genius  manifested  itself  in  art,  in 
letters  and  in  scholarship,  national  unity  was  already  an 
impossibility.1  The  race  had  been  broken  up  into  re- 
publics and  tyrannies.  Their  political  forces  were 
centrifugal  rather  than  centripetal.  The  first  half  of 
the  fifteenth  century  was  the  period  when  their  division 
into  five  great  powers,  held  together  by  the  frail  bond 
of  diplomacy,  had  been  accomplished,  and  when  Italy 
was  further  distracted  by  the  ambition  of  unprincipled 
condottieri.  Under  these  conditions  of  dismember- 
ment, the  Renaissance  came  to  perfection,  and  the 
ideal  unity  of  the  Italians  was  achieved.  The  space 
of  forty  years'  tranquillity  and  equilibrium,  which  pre 
ceded  Charles  VIII.'s  invasion,  marked  an  epoch  of 
recombination  and  consolidation,  when  the  two  currents 
of  national  energy,  learned  and  popular,  met  to  form 
the  culture  of  the  golden  age.  After  being  Tuscan 
and  neo- Latin,  the  literature  which  expressed  the 
nation  now  became  Italian.  Such  is  the  importance  of 
the  Quattrocento  in  Italian  history — long  denied,  late 
recognized,  but  now  at  length  acknowledged  as  neces- 
sary and  decisive  for  both  Italy  and  Europe. 

In  the  present  chapter  I  propose  to  follow  the  tran- 
sition from  the  middle  ages  effected  by  writers  who, 
though  they  used  the  mother  tongue,  take  rank  among 

1  Sec  Age  of  the  Despots,  chap.  a. 


148  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

cultivated  authors.  The  two  succeeding  chapters  will 
be  devoted  to  the  more  obscure  branches  of  vernac- 
ular literature  which  flourished  among  the  people. 

Franco  Sacchetti,  who  uttered  the  funeral  dirge 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  was  also  the  last  consider- 
able writer  of  that  age.1  Born  about  the  year  1335, 
of  one  of  the  old  noble  families  of  Florence,  he  lived 
until  the  end  of  the  century,  employed  in  various 
public  duties  and  assiduous  in  his  pursuit  of  letters.2 
He  was  a  friend  of  Boccaccio,  and  felt  the  highest 
admiration  not  only  for  his  novels  but  also  for  his 
learning,  though  he  tells  us  in  the  preface  to  his  own 
three  hundred  tales  that  he  was  himself  a  man  of 
slender  erudition — uomo  discolo  e  grosso.*  From  this 
preface  we  also  learn  that  enthusiasm  for  the  De- 
cameron prompted  him  to  write  a  set  of  novels  on  his 
own  account.4  Though  Sacchetti  loved  and  wor- 
shiped Boccaccio,  he  did  not  imitate  his  style.  The 
Novelle  are  composed  in  the  purest  vernacular,  without 
literary  artifice  or  rhetorical  ornament.  They  boast  no 
framework  of  fiction,  like  that  which  lends  the  setting 
of  romance  to  the  Decameron;  nor  do  they  pretend  to 
be  more  than  short  anecdotes  with  here  and  there  a 
word  of  moralizing  from  the  author.  Yet  the  student 
of  Italian,  eager  to  know  what  speech  was  current  in 

'  See  above,  p.  138.  All  that  is  known  about  Sacchetti 's  life  may  be 
found  in  the  Discourse  of  Monsignor  Giov.  Bottari,  prefixed  to  Silvestri's 
edition  of  the  Novelle. 

*  For  Sacchetti's  conception  ot  a  citizen's  duty,  proving  him  a  son 
of  Italy's  heroic  age,  see  the  sonnet  Amar  la  patria,  in  Monsignor  Bot- 
tari's  Discourse  above  mentioned. 

•  See  the  Sonnet  Pien  di  quell'  acqua  written  to  Boccaccio  on  his 
entering  the  Certosa  at  Naples. 

«  Here  too  he  mentions  a  translation  of  the  Decameron  into  English, 


SACCHETTI'S   NOVELS.  149 

the  streets  of  Florence  during  the  last  half  of  that 
century,  will  value  Sacchetti's  idiomatic  language  even 
more  highly  than  Boccaccio's  artful  periods.  He  tells 
us  what  the  people  thought  and  felt,  in  phrases  bor- 
rowed from  their  common  talk.  The  majority  of  the 
novels  treat  of  Florentine  life,  while  some  of  them 
bring  illustrious  Florentines — Dante  and  Giotto  and 
Guido  Cavalcanti — on  the  scene.  Sacchetti's  preface 
vouches  for  the  truth  of  his  stories ;  but,  whether  they 
be  strictly  accurate  or  not,  we  need  not  doubt  their 
fidelity  to  contemporary  customs,  domestic  manners, 
and  daily  conversation.  Sacchetti  inspires  a  certain 
confidence,  a  certain  feeling  of  friendliness.  And  yet 
what  a  world  is  revealed  in  his  Novelle — a  world  with- 
out tenderness,  pathos,  high  principle,  passion,  or 
enthusiasm  —  men  and  women  delighting  in  coarse 
humor,  in  practical  jokes  of  inconceivable  vulgarity, 
in  language  of  undisguised  grossness,  in  cruelty,  fraud, 
violence,  incontinence !  The  point  is  almost  always 
some  clever  trick,  a  burla  or  a  beffa,  or  a  piece  of 
subtly-planned  retaliation.  Knaves  and  fools  are  the 
chief  actors  in  this  comic  theater;  and  among  the 
former  we  find  many  friars,  among  the  latter  many 
husbands.  To  accept  the  Novelle  as  adequate  in  every 
detail  to  the  facts  of  Florentine  society,  would  be  un- 
critical. They  must  chiefly  be  used  for  showing  what 
passed  for  fun  among  the  burghers,  and  what  seemed 
fit  and  decent  topics  for  discussion.  Studied  from  that 
point  of  view,  and  also  for  the  abundant  light  they  throw 
on  customs  and  fashions,  Sacchetti's  tales  are  highly 
valuable.  The  bourgeoisie  of  Florence  lives  again  in 
their  animated  pages.  We  have  in  them  a  literature 


150  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

written  to  amuse,  if  not  precisely  to  represent,  a  civic 
society  closely  packed  within  a  narrow  area,  witty  and 
pleasure-loving,  acutely  sensitive  to  the  ridiculous, 
with  strongly-defined  tastes  and  a  decided  preference 
for  pungent  flavors.  One  distinctive  Florentine  quality 
emerges  with  great  clearness.  That  is  a  malicious  and 
jibing  humor — the  malice  Dante  took  with  him  to  the 
Inferno  \  the  malice  expressed  by  II  Lasca  and  Firen- 
zuola,  epitomized  in  Florentine  nicknames,  and  con- 
densed in  Rabelaisian  anecdotes  which  have  become 
classical.  It  reaches  its  climax  in  the  cruel  but  laughter- 
moving  jest  played  by  Brunelleschi  on  the  unfortunate 
cabinet- maker,  which  has  been  transmitted  to  us  in  the 
novel  of  E  Grasso,  Legnaiuolo. 

Somewhat  later  than  Sacchetti's  Novelle,  appeared 
another  collection  of  more  or  less  veracious  anecdotes, 
compiled  by  a  certain  Ser  Giovanni.1  He  called  it  Jl 
Pecorone,  which  may  be  interpreted  "The  Simpleton:" 

Ed  6  per  nome  il  Pecoron  chiamato, 
Perche  ci  ha  dentro  novi  barbagianni; 
Ed  io  son  capo  di  cotal  brigata, 
E  vo  belando  come  pecorone, 
Facendo  libri,  e  non  ne  so  boccata. 

Nothing  is  known  about  Ser  Giovanni,  except  what  he 
tells  us  in  the  Sonnet  just  quoted.  From  it  we  learn 
that  he  began  his  Novelle  in  the  year  1378 — the  year 
of  the  Ciompi  Revolution  at  Florence.  As  a  frame- 

1  This  should  also  be  the  place  to  mention  the  Novelle  of  Giovanni 
Sercambi  of  Lucca.  They  have  lately  been  re-edited  by  Professor  d 
Ancona,  Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1871.  They  are  short  tales,  historical 
and  moral,  drawn  from  miscellaneous  medieval  sources,  and  resembling 
the  Novellino  in  type.  Two  of  them  (Novelle  ix.  and  x.,  ed.  cit,  pp. 
62-74)  are  interesting  as  forming  part  of  the  Legend  of  Dante  the  Poet 


THE   PECORONE.  151 

work  for  his  stories,  he  devised  a  frigid  romance, 
which  may  be  briefly  told.  Sister  Saturnina,  the 
prioress  of  a  convent  at  Forll,  was  so  wise  and  beauti- 
ful that  her  fame  reached  Florence,  where  a  handsome 
and  learned  youth,  named  Auretto,  fell  in  love  with 
her  by  hearsay.  He  took  orders,  journeyed  across 
the  Apennines,  and  contrived  to  be  appointed  chaplain 
to  Saturnina's  nuns.  In  due  course  of  time  she  dis- 
creetly returned  his  affection,  and,  managing  their 
affairs  with  prudence  and  decorum,  they  met  for  pri- 
vate converse  and  mutual  solace  in  a  parlor  of  the 
convent.  Here  they  whiled  away  the  hours  by  telling 
stories — entertaining,  instructive,  or  romantic.  The 
collection  is  divided  into  twenty  five  days;  and  since 
each  lover  tells  a  tale,  there  are  fifty  Novelle,  inter- 
spersed with  songs  after  the  fashion  of  Boccaccio.  In 
the  style,  no  less  than  in  the  method  of  the  book,  Ser 
Giovanni  shows  himself  a  closer  follower  of  the 
Decameron  than  Sacchetti.  His  novels  have  a  wide 
range  of  incidents,  embracing  tragic  and  pathetic 
motives  no  less  than  what  is  humorous.  They  are 
treated  rhetorically,  and,  instead  of  being  simple  anec- 
dotes, aim  at  the  varied  movement  of  a  drama.  The 
language,  too,  is  literary,  and  less  idiomatic  than 
Sacchetti's.  Antiquarians  will  find  in  some  of  these 
discourses  an  interest  separate  from  what  is  common 
to  works  of  fiction.  They  represent  how  history  was 
communicated  to  the  people  of  that  day.  Saturnina, 
for  example,  relates  the  myth  of  Troy  and  the  founda- 
tion of  Fiesole,  which,  as  Dante  tells  us,  the  Tuscan 
mothers  of  Cacciaguida's  age  sang  to  their  children. 
The  lives  of  the  Countess  Matilda  and  Frederick 


152  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITA^Y. 

Barbarossa,  the  antiquity  and  wealth  of  the  Tuscan 
cities,  the  tragedy  of  Corso  Donati,  Giano  della 
Bella's  exile,  the  Angevine  Conquest  of  Sicily,  the 
origin  of  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines  in  Italy,  Attila's 
apocryphal  siege  of  Florence,  supply  materials  for 
narratives  in  which  the  true  type  of  the  Novella 
disappears.  Yet  Ser  Giovanni  mingles  more  amusing 
stories  with  these  lectures; 1  and  the  historical  disser- 
tations are  managed  with  such  grace,  with  so  golden  a 
simplicity  of  style,  that  they,  are  readable.  Of  a  truth 
it  is  comic  to  think  of  the  enamored  monk  and  nun 
meeting  in  the  solitude  of  their  parlor  to  exchange 
opinions  upon  Italian  history.  Though  he  had  the 
good  qualities  of  a  trecentisto  prosaist,  Ser  Giovanni 
was  in  this  respect  but  a  poor  artist. 

Both  Sacchetti  and  Ser  Giovanni  were  poets  of  no 
mean  ability.  As  in  his  prose,  so  also  in  his  Canzom 
a  Ballo,  the  author  of  the  Pbcorone  followed  Boccaccio, 
without,  however,  attaining  to  that  glow  and  sensuous 
abandonment  which  renders  the  lyrics  no  less  enchant- 
ing than  the  narratives  of  the  Decameron.  His  style 
is  smooth  and  fluent,  suggesting  literary  culture  rather 
than  spontaneous  inspiration.2  Yet  it  is  always  lucid. 
Through  the  transparent  language  we  see  straight 
into  the  hearts  of  lovers  as  the  novelist  of  Florence 
understood  them.  Written  for  the  most  part  in  the 
seven-lined  stanza  with  recurring  couplet,  which  Guido 

1  For  example,  the  first  Novel  of  the  fourth  day  is  the  story  which 
Shakspere  dramatized  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  and  forms,  as  every 
one  can  see,  the  authentic  source  of  that  comedy. 

8  It  must  be  remarked  that  the  text  of  //  Pecorone  underwent  Dome- 
nichi's  revision  in  the  sixteenth  century,  which  may  account  for  a  cer 
tain  flatness. 


SER    GIOVANNI'S   LYRICS. 


'53 


Cavalcanti  first  made  fashionable,  these  Ballate  give 
lyrical  expression  to  a  great  variety  of  tender  situa- 
tions. The  emotion  of  first  love,  the  pains  and  pleas- 
ures of  a  growing  passion,  the  anguish  of  betrayal, 
regrets,  quarrels,  reconciliations,  are  successively 
treated.  In  short,  Ser  Giovanni  versified  and  set  to 
music  all  the  principal  motives  upon  which  the* 
Novella  of  feeling  turned,  and  formed  an  ars  amandi 
adapted  to  the  use  of  the  people.  In  this  sense  his 
poems  seem  to  have  been  accepted,  for  we  find  MSS. 
of  the  Ballate  detached  from  the  prose  of  H  Peco- 
rone.1  Among  the  most  striking  may  be  mentioned 
the  canzonet  Tradita  sono,  which  retrospectively  de- 
scribes the  joy  of  a  girl  in  her  first  love ;  another  on 
the  fashions  of  Florentine  ladies,  Quante  leggiadre; 
and  the  lamentation  of  a  woman  whose  lover  has 
abandoned  her,  and  who  sees  no  prospect  but  the 
cloister — Oi  me  lassa? 

Ser  Giovanni's  lyrics  are  echoes  of  the  city,  where 
maidens  danced  their  rounds  upon  the  piazza  in  May 
evenings,  and  young  men  courted  the  beauty  of  the 
hour  with  songs  and  visits  to  her  chamber : 

Con  quanti  dolci  suon  e  con  che  canti 
lo  era  visitata  tutto  '1  giorno  ! 
E  nella  zambra  venivan  gli  amanti, 
Facendo  festa  e  standomi  intorno: 
Ed  io  guardava  nel  bel  viso  adorno, 
Che  d*  allegrezza  mi  cresceva  il  core. 


'  See  Carducci,  Cantilene  e  Ballate,  Strambotti  c  Madrigali  nti 
Secoli  xiii  e  xiv,  Pisa,  Nistri,  1871.  Pp.  176-205  contain  a  reprint  of 
these  lyrics.  Carducci's  work  Intorno  ad  alcune  Rime,  Imola,  1876, 
may  be  consulted  at  pp.  54  et  seq.  for  the  origin,  wide  diffusion,  and 
several  species  of  the  popular  dance-song. 

»  Cantilene,  etc.  pp.  196.  199,  204. 


154  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Franco  Sacchetti  carries  us  to  somewhat  different 
scenes.  The  best  of  his  madrigals  and  canzonets  de- 
scribe the  pleasures  of  country  life.  They  are  not 
genuinely  rustic ;  nor  do  they,  in  Theocritean  fashion, 
attempt  to  render  the  beauty  of  the  country  from  the 
peasant's  point  of  view.  On  the  contrary,  they  owe 
their  fascination  to  the  contrast  between  the  simplicity 
of  the  villa  and  the  unrest  of  the  town,  where : 

Mai  vi  si  dice  e  di  ben  far  vi  e  caro. 

They  are  written  for  and  by  the  bourgeois  who  has 
escaped  from  shops  and  squares  and  gossiping  street- 
corners.  The  keynote  of  this  poetry,  which  has  always 
something  of  the  French  ecole  buissonnibre  in  its  fresh 
unalloyed  enjoyment,  is  struck  in  a  song  describing  the 
return  of  Spring1: 

Benedetta  sia  la  state 
Che  ci  fa  si  solazzare ! 
Maladetto  sia  lo  verno 
Che  a  citti  ci  fa  tornare  1 

The  poet  summons  his  company  of  careless  folk,  on 
pleasure  bent : 

No'  siam  una  compagnia, 
I'  dico  di  cacciapensieri. 

He  takes  them  forth  into  the  fields  among  the  farms 
and  olive-gardens,  bidding  them  leave  prudence  and 
grave  thoughts  within  the  lofty  walls  of  Florence 
town: 

II  senno  e  la  contenenza 

Lasciam  dentro  all'  alte  mura 
Delia  cittet  di  Fiorenza. 

1   Cantiltne,  etc.  p.  21 1. 


SACCHETTI'S   LYRICS.  155 

This  note  of  gayety  and  pure  enjoyment  is  sus- 
tained throughout  his  lyrics.  In  one  Ballata  he  de- 
scribes a  country  girl,  caught  by  thorns,  and  unable  to 
avoid  her  admirer's  glance.1  Another  gives  a  pretty 
picture  of  a  maiden  with  a  wreath  of  olive-leaves  and 
silver.2  A  third  is  a  little  idyll  of  two  girls  talking  to 
their  lambs,  and  followed  by  an  envious  old  woman.3 
A  fourth  is  a  biting  satire  on  old  woman — Di  diavol 
vecchia  femmina  ha  natural  A  fifth  is  that  incom- 
parably graceful  canzonet,  O  vaghe  montanine  pastu- 
relle,  the  popularity  of  which  is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
it  was  orally  transmitted  for  many  generations,  and 
attributed  in  after  days  to  both  Lorenzo  de'  Medici 
and  Angelo  Poliziano.5  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  in 
passing  that  Poliziano  owed  much  to  Sacchetti.  This 
can  be  seen  by  comparing  Sacchetti's  Ballata  on  the 
Gentle  Heart,  and  his  pastoral  of  the  Thorn-tree  with 
the  later  poet's  lyrics.6 

The  unexpressed  contrast  between  the  cautious 
town-life  of  the  burgher  poet  and  his  license  in  the 
villa,  to  which  I  have  already  called  attention,  deter- 
mines the  character  of  many  minor  lyrics  by  Sac- 
chetti.7 We  comprehend  the  spirit  of  these  curious 
poems,  at  once  popular  and  fashionable,  when  we 

1  Cantilene,  etc.,  p.  220. 

*  Ibid.  p.  219.     Compare  Passando  con  pensier  in  the  Rime  di  Mes- 
ser  Cino  e  d'  aUri  (Barbara),  p.  563. 
» Ibid.  p.  233. 

4  Ibid.  p.  231. 

5  Ibid.  p.  214  and  note.    The  popularity  of  this  dance-poem  is  further 
proved  by  a  pious  parody  written  to  be  sung  to  the  same  air  with  it:  "O 
vaghe  di  Gesu,  o  verginelle."    See  Laudi  Spirituals  (Firenze,  Molini, 
1863),  p.  105. 

8  Ibid.  pp.  217,  218. 

7  See  ibid.  pp.  252-256,  259,  263. 


156  RENAISSANCE   IN   ITALY. 

compare  them  with  medieval  French  Pasivurelles  or 
with  similar  compositions  by  wandering  Latin  students. 
In  the  Carmin  Bur  ana  may  be  found  several  little 
poems,  describing  the  fugitive  loves  of  truant  scholars 
with  rustic  girls,  which  prove  that,  long  before  Sac- 
chetti's  age,  the  town  had  sought  spring-solace  in  the 
country.1  Men  are  too  apt  to  fancy  that  what  they 
consider  the  refinements  of  passion  and  fashion  (the 
finer  edge,  for  example,  put  upon  desire  by  altering  its 
object  from  the  known  and  trivial  to  the  untried  and 
exceptional,  from  venal  beauties  in  the  city  to  shepherd 
maidens  on  the  village-green)  are  inventions  of  their 
own  times.  Yet  it  was  precisely  a  refinement  of  this 
sort  which  gave  peculiar  flavor  to  Sacchetti's  songs 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  which  made  them  sought 
after.  They  had  great  vogue  in  Italy,  enjoying  the 
privilege  of  popularity  among  the  working  classes, 
and  helping  to  diffuse  that  sort  of  pastoral  part-song 
which  we  still  know  as  Madrigal.2  Sacchetti  was 
himself  a  good  musician;  many  of  his  songs  were 
set  to  music  by  himself,  and  others  by  his  friends. 
This  gives  a  pleasant  old-world  homeliness  to  the 
Latin  titles  inscribed  beneath  the  rubrics — Franciscus 
de  Organis  sonum  dedit;  Intonatum  per  Francum  Sac- 
chetti; Francus  sonum  dedit;  and  so  forth. 

The  Ballads  and  Madrigals  of  Niccolc-  Soldanieri 
should  be  mentioned  in  connection  with  Sacchetti; 

1  It  is  enough  to  mention  Exit  diluculo,  Vere  dulci  mediante,  ALstivali 
sub  fervor e. 

*I  must  briefly  refer  to  Carducci's  Essay  on  "Musica  e  Poesia  nel 
mondo  elegante  italiano  del  secolo  xiv,"  in  his  Studi  Letterari,  Livorno, 
Vigo,  1874,  and  to  my  own  translations  from  some  of  the  there  published 
Madrigals  in  Sketches  and  Studies  in  Italy,  pp.  214-216. 


ALESSO   DONATI'S    LYRICS.  157 

though  they  do  not  detach  themselves  in  any  marked 
ray  from  the  style  of  love  poetry  practiced  at  the 
close  of  the  fourteenth  century.1  The  case  is  different 
with  Alesso  Donati's  lyrics.  In  them  we  are  struck 
by  a  new  gust  of  coarse  and  powerful  realism,  which 
has  no  parallel  among  the  elder  poets  except  in  the 
savage  sonnets  of  Cecco  Angiolieri.  Vividly  natural 
situations  are  here  detached  from  daily  life  and  deline 
ated  with  intensity  of  passion,  vehement  sincerity. 
Sacchetti's  gentleness  and  genial  humor  have  dis- 
appeared. In  their  place  we  find  a  dramatic  energy 
and  a  truth  of  language  that  are  almost  terrible.  Each 
of  the  little  scenes,  which  I  propose  to  quote  in  illus- 
tration of  these  remarks,  might  be  compared  to  etch- 
ings bitten  with  aquafortis  into  copper.  Here,  for 
example,  is  a  nun,  who  has  resolved  to  throw  aside 
her  veil  and  follow  her  lover  in  a  page's  dress2: 

La  dura  corda  e  '1  vel  bruno  e  la  tonica 

Gittar  voglio  e  lo  scapolo 

Che  mi  tien  qui  rinchiusa  e  fammi  monica; 

Poi  teco  a  guisa  d'  assetato  giovane, 

Non  gik  che  si  sobarcoli, 

Venir  me  'n  voglio  ove  fortuna  piovane: 
E  son  contenta  star  per  serva  e  cuoca, 

Che  men  mi  cocero  ch'  ora  mi  cuoca. 

Here  is  a  dialogue  at  dawn  between  a  woman  and  her 
paramour.  The  presence  of  the  husband  sleeping  in 
the  chamber  is  suggested  with  a  brutal  vigor3: 

De  vattene  oggimai,  ma  pianamente, 
Amor;  per  dio,  si  piano 
Che  non  ti  senta  il  mal  vecchio  villano. 
Ch'  egli  sta  sentecchioso,  e,  se  pur  sente 


1  Carducci,  Caniihne,  pp.  265-296.  *  Op.  cit.  p.  298. 

3  Op.  cit.  p.  301. 


158  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Ch'  i'  die  nel  letto  volta, 
Temendo  abbraccia  me  no  gli  sie  tolta. 
Che  tristo  faccia  Iddio  chi  gli  m'  a  data 
E  chi  spera  'n  villan  buona  derrata. 

Scarcely  less  forcible  is  the  girl's  vow  against  her 
mother,  who  keeps  her  shut  at  home1: 

In  pena  vivo  qui  sola  soletta 

Giovin  rinchiusa  dalla  madre  mia, 

La  qual  mi  guarda  con  gran  gelosia. 

Ma  io  le  giuro  alia  croce  di  Dio 

Che  s'  ella  mi  terra  qui  piu  serrata, 

Ch'  i'  diro — Fa'  con  Dio,  vecchia  arrabiata; 
E  gitterb  la  rocca,  il  fuso  e  1'  ago, 

Amor,  fuggendo  a  te  di  cui  m'  appago. 

To  translate  these  madrigals  would  be  both  diffi- 
cult and  undesirable.  It  is  enough  to  have  printed 
the  original  texts.  They  prove  that  aristocratic  versi- 
fiers at  this  period  were  adopting  the  style  of  the 
people,  and  adding  the  pungency  of  brief  poetic  treat- 
ment to  episodes  suggested  by  novelle.* 

While  dealing  with  the  Novelle  and  the  semi- 
popular  literature  of  this  transition  period,  I  have 
hitherto  neglected  those  numerous  minor  poets  who 
continued  the  traditions  of  the  earlier  trecento."* 
There  are  two  main  reasons  for  this  preference.  In 
the  first  place,  the  navelle  was  destined  to  play  a 
most  important  part  in  the  history  of  the  Renaissance, 
imposing  its  own  laws  of  composition  upon  species 
so  remote  as  the  religious  drama  and  romantic  epic. 

>  op.  dt.  p.  300. 

•  It  may  be  worth  mentioning  that  Soldanieri  and  Donati  as  well  as 
Sacchetti  belonged  to  the  old  nobility  of  Florence,  the  Grandi  celebrated 
by  name  in  Dante's  Paradise. 

»  See  Trucchi's  Poesie  Irudite,  and  the  Rime  Antichs  Toscane,  cited 
above,  for  copious  collections  of  these  poets. 


POLITICAL    LYRICS.  159 

In  the  second  place,  the  dance-songs,  canzonets  and 
madrigals  of  Sacchetti's  epoch  lived  upon  the  lips  of 
the  common  folk,  who  during  the  fifteenth  century 
carried  Italian  literature  onward  through  a  subterranean 
channel.1  When  vernacular  poetry  reappeared  into 
the  light  of  erudition  and  the  Courts,  the  influences 
of  that  popular  style,  which  drew  its  origin  from 
Boccaccio  and  Sacchetti  rather  than  from  Dante  or 
the  Trovatori,  determined  the  manner  of  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici  and  Poliziano.  Meanwhile  the  learned  poems 
of  the  latest  trecentisti  were  forgotten  with  the  lumber 
of  the  middle  ages.  For  the  special  purpose,  therefore, 
of  this  volume,  which  only  regards  the  earlier  stages 
of  Italian  literature  in  so  far  as  they  preceded  and 
conditioned  the  Renaissance,  it  was  necessary  to  give 
the  post  of  honor  to  Boccaccio's  followers.  Some 
mention  should,  however,  here  be  made  of  those  con- 
temporaries and  imitators  of  Petrarch,  in  whom  the 
traditions  of  the  fourteenth  century  expired.  It  is  not 
needful  to  pass  in  review  the  many  versifiers  who 
treated  the  old  themes  of  chivalrous  love  with  meri- 
torious conventional  facility.  The  true  life  of  the 
Italians  was  not  here ;  and  the  phase  of  literature 
which  the  Sicilian  School  inaugurated,  survived  already 
as  an  anachronism.  The  case  is  different  with  such 
poetry  as  dealt  immediately  with  contemporary  politics. 
In  the  declamatory  compositions  of  this  age,  we  hear 
the  echoes  of  the  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  wars.  The 
force  of  that  great  struggle  was  already  spent;  but 
for  the  partisans  of  either  faction,  passion  enough  sur- 

1  This  can  be  seen  in  Carducci's  Cantilene,  pp.  115,  116,  150,  and  in 
his  Studi  Letterari,  pp.  374-446. 


160  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

vived  to  furnish  genuine  inspiration.  Fazio  degli 
Uberti's  sermintese  on  the  cities  of  Italy,  for  example, 
was  written  in  the  bitter  spirit  of  an  exiled  Ghibelline.1 
His  ode  to  Charles  IV.  is  a  torrent  of  vehement  med- 
ieval abuse,  poured  forth  against  an  Emperor  who  had 
shown  himself  unworthy  of  his  place  in  Italy2: 

Sappi  ch'  i'  son  Italia  che  ti  parlo, 
Di  Lusimburgo  ignominioso  Carlo  I 

After  detailing  the  woes  which  have  befallen  her  in 
consequence  of  her  abandonment  by  the  imperial  mas- 
ter, Italy  addresses  herself  to  God : 

Tu  dunque,  Giove,  perche  '1  santo  uccello  .  .  . 
Da  questo  Carlo  quarto 
Imperador  non  togli  e  dalle  man! 
Degli  altri  lurchi  moderni  germani, 
Che  d'  aquila  un  allocco  n'  hanno  fatto  ? 

The  Italian  Ghibellines  had,  indeed,  good  reason  to 
complain  that  German  gluttons,  Caesars  in  naught  but 
name,  who  only  thought  of  making  money  by  their 
sale  of  fiefs  and  honors,  had  changed  the  eagle  of  the 
Empire  into  an  obscene  night-flying  bird  of  prey. 
The  same  spirit  is  breathed  in  Fazio's  ode  on  Rome.3 
He  portrays  the  former  mistress  of  the  world  as  a  lady 
clad  in  weeds  of  mourning,  "  ancient,  august  and  hon- 
orable, but  poor  and  needy  as  her  habit  showed, 
prudent  in  speech  and  of  great  puissance."  She  bids 

»  O pellegrina  Italia.  Rime  di  Cino  e  d'  altri  (Barbera),  p.  318.  I 
shall  quote  from  this  excellent  edition  of  Carducci,  as  being  most  acces- 
sible to  general  readers.  The  Sermintese  or  Serventese,  it  may  be  pa- 
renthetically said,  was  a  form  of  satirical  and  occasional  lyric  adapted 
from  the  Provengal  Sirvente. 

*  Cino,  etc.  p.  342.  »  Ibid.  p.  334. 


GIAN   GALEAZZO    VISCONTI.  l6l 

the  poet  rouse  his  fellow-countrymen  from  their  sleep 
of  sloth  and  drunkenness,  to  reassert  the  majesty  of 
the  empire  owed  to  Italy  and  Rome: 

O  figliuol  mio,  da  quanta  crudel  guerra 
Tutti  insieme  verremo  a  dolce  pace, 
Sfi  Italia  soggiace 
A  im  solo  Re  che  al  mio  volcr  consente ! 

This  is  the  last  echo  of  the  De  MonarchiA.  The 
great  imperial  idea,  so  destructive  to  Italian  confedera- 
tion, so  dazzling  to  patriots  of  Dante's  fiber,  expires 
amid  the  waitings  of  minstrels  who  cry  for  the  impos- 
sible, and  haunt  the  Courts  of  petty  Lombard  princes. 
In  another  set  of  Canzoni  we  listen  to  Guelf  and 
Ghibelline  recriminations,  rising  from  the  burghs  of 
Tuscany.  The  hero  of  these  poems  is  Gian  Galeazzo 
Visconti,  rightly  recognized  by  the  Guelfs  of  Florence 
as  a  venomous  and  selfish  tyrant,  foolishly  belauded 
by  the  Ghibellines  of  Siena  as  the  vindicator  of 
imperial  principles.  The  Emperors  have  abandoned 
Italy;  the  Popes  are  at  Avignon.  The  factions  which 
their  quarrels  generated,  agitate  their  people  still,  but 
on  a  narrower  basis.  Sacchetti  slings  invectives 
against  the  maladetta  serpe,  aspro  tiranno  con  amaro 
fele,  who  shall  be  throttled  by  the  Church  and  Flor- 
ence, leagued  to  crush  the  Lombard  despots.1  Savi- 
ozzo  da  Siena  addresses  the  same  Visconti  as  novella 
monarchia,  giusto  signore,  clemente  padre,  insigne,  vir- 
tuoso. By  his  means  the  dolce  vedovetta,  Rome  or 
Italy,  shall  at  last  find  peace.2  This  Duke  of  Milan, 
it  will  be  remembered,  had  already  ordered  the  crown 

i  Gno,  etc.  p.  548.  *  Ibid.  p.  586. 


l6t  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

of  Italy  from  his  Court-jeweler,  and  was  advancing 
on  his  road  of  conquest,  barred  only  by  Florence, 
when  the  Plague  cut  short  his  career  in  1402.  The 
poet  of  Siena  exhorts  him  to  take  courage  for  his 
task,  in  lines  that  are  not  deficient  in  a  certain  fire  of 
inspiration: 

Tu  vedi  in  ciel  la  fiammeggiante  aurora, 

Le  stelle  tue  propizie  e  rutilanti, 

E'  segni  tutti  quanti 

Ora  disposti  alia  tua  degna  spada. 

In  another  strophe  he  refers  to  the  Italian  crown: 

Ecco  qui  Italia  che  ti  chiama  padre, 
Che  per  te  spera  omai  di  trionfare, 
E  di  s&  incoronare 
Le  tue  benigne  e  preziose  chiomc. 

An  anonymous  sonnetteer  of  the  same  period  uses 
similar  language1; 

Roma  vi  chiama — Cesar  mio  novello, 
I'  son  ignuda,  e  1'  anima  pur  vive; 
Or  mi  coprite  col  vostro  mantello. 

The  Ghibelline  poets,  whether  they  dreamed  like 
Fazio  of  Roman  Empire,  or  flattered  the  Visconti 
with  a  crown  to  be  won  by  triumph  over  the  detested 
Guelfs,  made  play  with  Dante's  memory.  Some  of 
the  most  interesting  lyrics  of  the  school  are  elegies 
upon  his  death.  To  this  class  belong  two  sonnets  by 
Pieraccio  Tedaldi  and  Mucchio  da  Lucca. 3  Nor  must 
Boccaccio's  noble  pair  of  sonnets,  although  he  was  not 
a  political  poet,  be  here  forgotten. s  That  Dante  was 

i  Cino,  etc.  p.  391.  *  Ibid.  pp.  199,  200. 

a  Ibid.  pp.  384,  389. 


GURLP  POETS.  163 

diligently  studied  can  be  seen,  not  only  in  the  diction 
of  this  epoch,  but  also  in  numerous  versified  commen- 
taries upon  the  Divine  Comedy — in  the  terza  rima 
abstracts  of  Boson  da  Gubbio,  Jacopo  Alighieri,  Sa- 
viozzo  da  Siena,  and  Boccaccio.1 

Tuscan  politics  are  treated  from  the  Guelf  point  of 
view  in  Sacchetti's  odes  upon  the  war  with  Pisa,  upon 
the  government  of  Florence  after  1378,  and  against 
the  cowardice  of  the  Italians.2  His  conception  of  a 
burgher's  duties,  the  ideal  of  Guelf  bourgeoisie  before 
Florence  had  become  accustomed  to  tyrants,  finds 
expression  in  a  sonnet — Amar  la  patria?  We  fre- 
quently meet  with  the  word  Comune  on  his  lips: 

O  vuol  rt  o  signore  o  vuol  comune, 
Che  per  comune  dico  cib  ch*  io  parlo. 

A  like  note  of  municipal  independence  is  sounded 
in  the  poems  of  Antonio  Pucci,  and  in  the  admonitory 
stanzas  of  Matteo  Frescobaldi.4  Considerable  interest 
attaches  to  these  political  compositions  for  the  light 
they  throw  on  party  feeling  at  the  close  of  the  heroic 
age  of  Italian  history.  The  fury  with  which  those 
factions  raged,  prompts  the  bards  of  either  camp  to 
curses.  I  may  refer  to  this  passage  from  Folgore 
da  San  Gemignano,  when  he  sees  the  Ghibelline 
Uguccione  triumphant  over  Tuscany: 8 

§1  Cino,  etc.  pp.  202,  211,  573,  390.  »  Ibid.  pp.  504,  535,  498. 

8  In  the  Discourse  of  Monsignor  Giov.  Bottari,  Section  vi.,  printed 
before  Sacchetti's  Novelle. 

*  Cino,  etc.  pp.  445-474,  258-263. 

•  Navone's  edition  (Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1880),  p.  56.     The  date  ot 
this  sonnet  must  be  about  1315.     We  have  to  choose  between  placing 
Folgore  in  that  century  or  assigning  the  sonnet  to  some  anonymous 
author.     See  Appendix  II.  for  translations. 


164  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Eo  non  ti  lodo  Dio  e  non  ti  adoro, 
E  non  ti  prego  e  non  ti  ringrazio, 
E  non  ti  servo  ch'  io  ne  son  piti  sazio 
Che  1'  aneme  de  star  en  purgatoro; 

Perche  tu  ai  messi  i  Guelfi  a  tal  martoro 
Ch'  i  Ghibellini  ne  fan  beffe  e  strazio, 
E  se  Uguccion  ti  comandasse  il  dazio, 
Tu  '1  pagaresti  senza  peremptoro ! 

Yet  neither  in  the  confused  idealism  of  the  Ghibel- 
lines  nor  in  the  honest  independence  of  the  Guelfs 
lay  the  true  principle  of  national  progress.  Sinking 
gradually  and  inevitably  beneath  the  sway  of  despots, 
the  Italians  in  the  fifteenth  century  were  destined  to 
become  a  nation  of  scholars,  artists,  litter ati.  The 
age  of  Dante,  the  uncompromising  aristocrat,  was 
over.  The  age  of  Boccaccio,  the  easy-going  bourgeois, 
had  begun.  The  future  glories  of  Italy  were  to  be 
won  in  the  field  of  culture;  and  all  the  hortatory  lyrics 
I  have  mentioned,  exerted  but  little  influence  over  the 
development  of  a  spirit  which  was  growing  quietly 
within  the  precincts  of  the  people.  The  Italian  people 
at  this  epoch  cared  far  less  for  the  worn-out  factions 
of  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines  than  for  home-comforts 
and  tranquillity  in  burgher  occupations.  The  keener 
intellects  of  the  fifteenth  century  were  already  so 
absorbingly  occupied  with  art  and  classical  studies  that 
there  was  no  room  left  in  them  for  politics  of  the 
old  revolutionary  type.  Meanwhile  the  new  intrigues 
of  Cabinets  and  Courts  were  left  to  a  class  of  human- 
istic diplomatists,  created  by  the  conditions  of  despotic 
government.  Scarcely  less  ineffectual  were  the  moral 
verses  of  Bambagiuoli  and  Cavalca,  or  the  Petrarch- 
istic  imitations  of  Marchionne  Torrigiani,  Federigo 


CLOSE    OF   THE   HEROIC  AGE.  165 

cT  Arezzo,  Coluccio  Salutati,  Roberto  di  Battifolle,  and 
Bonaccorso  da  Montemagno.1  The  former  belonged 
to  a  phase  of  medieval  culture  which  was  waning. 
The  elegant  but  lifeless  Petrarchistic  school  dragged 
on  through  the  fifteenth  century,  culminating  in  the 
Canzoniere  of  Giusto  de'  Conti,  a  Roman,  which  was 
called  La  bella  mano.  The  revival  of  their  mannerism, 
with  a  fixed  artistic  motive,  by  Bembo  and  the  purists 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  will  form  part  of  my  later 
history  of  Renaissance  literature. 

One  note  is  unmistakable  in  all  the  poetry  of 
these  last  trecentisti.  It  is  a  note  of  profound  dis- 
couragement, mistrust,  and  disappointment.  We  have 
already  heard  it  sounded  by  Sacchetti  in  his  lament  for 
Boccaccio.  Boccaccio  had  raised  it  himself  in  two 
noble  sonnets — Apizio  legge  and  Fuggif  e  ogni  virtii? 
It  takes  the  shrillness  of  a  threnody  in  Tedaldi's  Jl 
mondo  vile  and  in  Manfredi  di  Boccaccio's  Amico  il 
•>ndo?  The  poets  of  that  age  were  dimly  conscious 
lat  a  new  era  had  opened  for  their  country — an 
;ra  of  money-getting,  despotism,  and  domestic  ease, 
icy  saw  the  people  used  to  servitude  and  sunk  in 
:ommon  pleasures— dead  to  the  high  aims  and  imagi- 
native aspirations  of  the  past.  The  turbulence  of  the 
leroic  age  was  gone.  The  men  of  the  present  were 
11  Vigliacchi.  And  as  yet  both  art  and  learning 
rere  but  in  their  cradle.  It  was  impossible  upon  the 
opening  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  that  crepuscular 
interval  between  two  periods  of  splendor,  to  know 
what  glories  for  Italy  and  for  the  world  at  large  would 

»  Cino.  etc.  pp.  174-195,  420^441.  '  Ibid.  p.  418. 

»  Ibid.  pp.  197,  198. 


1 66  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

be  produced  by  Giotto's  mighty  lineage  and  Petrarch's 
progeny  of  scholars.  We  who  possess  in  history  the 
vision  of  that  future  can  be  content  to  wait  through  a 
transition  century.  The  men  of  the  moment  not  un- 
naturally expressed  the  querulousness  of  Italy,  dis- 
tracted by  her  struggles  of  the  past  and  sinking  into 
somnolence.  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  the  molder  of  Re- 
naissance Florence,  was  already  born  in  1389;  and 
men  of  Cosimo's  stamp  were  no  heroes  for  poets  who 
had  felt  the  passions  that  moved  Dante. 

The  Divine  Comedy  found  fewer  imitators  than 
the  Canzoniere;  for  who  could  bend  the  bow  of 
Ulysses?  Yet  some  poets  of  the  transition  were 
hardy  enough  to  attempt  the  Dantesque  meter,  and 
,  to  pretend  in  a  prosaic  age  that  they  had  shared  the 
vision  of  the  prophets.  Among  these  should  be 
mentioned  Fazio  degli  Uberti,  a  scion  of  Farinata's 
noble  house,  who  lived  and  traveled  much  in  exile.1 
Taking  Solinus,  the  antique  geographer,  for  his  guide, 
Fazio  produced  a  topographical  poem  called  the  Dicta 
Mundi  or  Dittamondo? 

From  the  prosaic  matter  of  this  poem,  which  re- 
sembles a  very  primitive  Mappamondo,  illustrated 
with  interludes  of  history  and  excursions  into  mytho- 
logical zoology,  based  upon  the  text  of  Pliny,  and  not 
unworthy  of  Mandeville,  two  episodes  emerge  and 

1  He  was  the  author  of  the  Ghibelline  Canzoni  quoted  above. 

»  It  was  composed  about  1360.  I  have  seen  two  editions  of  this 
poem,  Operi  di  Faccio  degli  uberti  Fiorentino,  Chiamato  Ditta  Mundi, 
Volgare.  Impresso  in  Venetia  per  Christoforo  di  Pensa  da  Mondelo. 
Adi  iiii.  Setembrio  MCCCCCI.  The  second  is  a  version  modernized  in 
its  orthography:  //  Dittamondo,  Milano,  Silvestri,  1826.  My  quotations 
will  be  made  from  the  second  of  these  editions,  which  has  the  advantage 
of  a  more  intelligible  text. 


THE    DITTAMONDO.  167 

arrest  attention.  One  is  the  description  of  Rome — a 
somber  lady  in  torn  raiment,  who  tells  the  history 
of  her  eventful  past,  describes  her  triumphs  and  her 
empire,  and  points  to  the  ruins  on  her  seven  crowned 
hills  to  show  how  beautiful  she  was  in  youth l : 

Ivi  una  dama  scorsi; 

Vecchia  era  in  vista,  e  trista  per  costume. 
Gli  occhi  da  lei,  andando,  mai  ton  torsi; 

Ma  poiche  presso  le  fui  giunto  tanto 

Ch'  io  1'  avvisava  senza  nessun  forsi, 
Vidi  il  suo  volto,  ch1  era  pien  di  pianto, 

Vidi  la  vesta  sua  rotta  e  disfatta, 

E  roso  e  guasto  il  suo  vedovo  manto. 
E  con  tutto  che  fosse  cosi  fatta, 

Pur  nell'  abito  suo  onesto  e  degno 

Mostrava  uscita  di  gentile  schiatta. 
Tanto  era  grande,  e  di  nobil  contegno, 

Ch'  io  diceva  fra  me:  Ben  fu  costei, 

E  pare  ancor  da  posseder  bel  regno. 

Fazio  addresses  the  mighty  shadow  with  respectful 
sympathy.  Rome  answers  in  language  which  is  noble 
through  its  simple  dignity: 

Non  ti  maravigliare  s*  io  ho  doglia, 

Non  ti  maravigliar  se  trista  piango, 

Ne  se  me  vedi  in  si  misera  spoglia; 
Ma  fatti  maraviglia,  ch'  io  rimango, 

E  non  divento  qual  divenne  Ecuba 

Quando  gittava  altrui  le  pietre  e  il  fango. 

The  second  passage  of  importance,  more  noticeable 
for  a  sense  of  space  and  largeness  than  for  its  poetical 
expression,  is  a  description  of  the  prospect  seen  from 
Alvernia,  that  high  station  of  the  "  topless  Apennines," 
where  S.  Francis  took  the  Stigmata,  and  where  Dante 

'  Lib,  i..  cap.  2.    Cp.  Fazio's  Ode  on  Rome,  abore,  p.  160. 


1 68  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

sought  a  home  in  the  destruction  of  his  earthly 
hopes l : 

Noi  fummo  sopra  il  sasso  dell  Alverna 

Al  faggio  ove  Francesco  fue  fedito 

Dal  Serafin  quel  di  ch'  ei  piu  s'interna. 
Molto  e  quel  monte  devoto  e  rotnito, 

Ed  e  si  alto  che  il  piu  di  Toscana 

Mi  disegnb  un  frate  col  suo  dito. 
Guarcla,  mi  disse,  al  mare,  e  vedi  piana 

Con  altri  colli  la  maremma  tutta 

Dilettevole  molto  e  poco  sana. 
Ivi  e  Massa,  Grosseto  e  la  distrutta 

Civite  vecchia,  ed  ivi  Populonia 

Ch'  appena  pare,  tanto  6  mal  condutta. 

The  whole  of  Tuscany  and  Umbria,  their  cities,  plains, 
rivers  and  mountain  summits,  are  unrolled;  and  the 
friar  concludes  with  a  sentence  which  well  embodies 
the  feeling  we  have  in  gazing  over  an  illimitable 
landscape: 

Io  so  bene  che  quanto  t'  ho  mostrato, 

La  vista  nol  discerna  apertamente, 

Per  lo  spazio  ch'  e  lungo  dov"  io  guato: 
Ma  quando  1'  uom  che  bene  ascolta  e  sente, 

Ode  parlar  di  cosa  che  non  vede, 

Immagina  con  1'occhio  della  mente. 

Such  value  as  the  Dittamondo  may  still  retain  for 
students,  it  owes  partly  to  the  author's  enthusiasm 
for  ancient  Rome,  and  partly  to  the  sympathy  with 
nature  he  had  acquired  during  his  wandering  as  an 
exile  over  the  sacred  soil  of  Italy. 

Another   poem  of  Dantesque    derivation   was   the 
Quadriregio  of  Federigo   Frezzi,   Bishop  of  Foligno.2 

1  Lib.  iii.  cap.  9. 

1  Libra  chiamato  Quatriregio  del  Decorso  de  la  Vita  Humana  in 
Terza  Rima,  Impresso  in  Venetia  del  MCCCCCXI  a  di  primo  di  De- 
cembrio.  There  is,  I  believe,  a  last  century  Foligno  reprint  of  the 
Quadriregio;  but  I  have  not  seen  it 


THE    QUADRIREG10.  l6g 

It  is  an  allegorical  account  of  human  life;  and  the 
four  regions,  which  give  their  name  to  the  book,  are 
the  realms  of  Love,  Satan,  Vice  and  Virtue.1  Tc 
cast  the  moralizations  of  the  middle  ages  in  a  form 
imitated  from  Dante,  after  Dante  had  already  con- 
densed the  ethics  and  politics,  the  theology  and 
science  of  his  century  in  the  Divine  Comedy,  was 
little  less  than  a  hopeless  task.  Nor  need  a  word  be 
spent  upon  the  Quadriregio,  except  by  way  of  illus- 
trating the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  poetic  art,  here 
upon  the  border-land  between  the  middle  age  and  the 
Renaissance.  Federigo  Frezzi  was  intent  on  depict- 
ing the  victories  of  virtue  over  vice,  and  on  explaining 
the  advantage  offered  to  the  Christian  by  grace.  Yet 
he  chose  a  mythological  framework  for  his  doctrine. 
Cupid,  Venus  and  Minerva  are  confused  with  Satan, 
Enoch  and  Elijah.  Instead  of  Eden  there  is  the 
golden  age.  Nymphs  of  Diana,  Juno,  and  the  like, 
are  used  as  emblems.  Pallas  discourses  about  Christ, 
and  expounds  the  Christian  system  of  redemption. 
The  earthly  Paradise  contains  Helicon,  with  all  the 
antique  poets.  Jupiter  is  contrasted  with  Satan.  It 
is  the  same  blending  of  antique  with  Christian  motives 
which  we  note  in  the  Divine  Comedy;  but  the  tact 
of  the  great  artist  is  absent,  and  the  fusion  becomes 
grotesque.  After  reading  through  the  poem  we  lay  it 
down  with  the  same  feeling  as  that  produced  in  us 
by  studying  some  pulpit  of  the  Pisan  School,  where  a 
Gothic  Devil,  all  horns  and  hoofs  and  grinning  jaws, 
squats  cheek  by  jowl  with  a  Madonna  copied  from  a 

1  "  Regno  di  Dio  Cupido,"  "  Regno  di  Sathan,"  "  Regno  delli  Vttli,' 
'  Regno  della  Dea  Minerva  e  di  Virtd." 


170  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Roman  tomb.  The  following  description  of  Cupid 
recalls  the  manner  of  the  Sienese  frescanti l : 

Appena  questo  priego  havea  io  decto 

quando  egli  apparve  ad  me  fresco  et  giocondo, 

in  un  giardino  ove  io  stava  solecto. 
Di  mirto  coronato  il  capo  biondo 

in  forma  pueril  con  si  bel  viso 

che  mai  piu  bel  fu  visto  in  questo  mondo. 
Creso  haverai  che  su  del  paradiso 

fusse  el  suo  aspecto,  tanto  era  sovrano, 

se  non  che  quando  a  lui  mirai  fiso 
Vidi  che  haveva  uno  archo  orato  in  mano 

col  quale  Achille  et  Hercole  percosse. 

Here  is  the  picture  of  the  Golden  Age,  transcribed 
from  Latin  poetry,  much  as  it  was  destined  to  control 
the  future  of  Italian  fancy 2 : 

Vergine  saggia  e  bella  el  ciel  adorna 

di  cui  Virgilio  poetando  scripse, 

nuova  progenie  al  mondo  dal  ciel  torna, 
Rexe  gik  el  mondo  et  si  la  gente  visse 

socto  lei  in  pace  che  la  eta  dell  oro 

et  seculo  giusto  et  beato  si  disse. 
La  terra  allora  senza  alcun  lavoro 

dava  li  fructi,  et  non  faceva  spine, 

ne  ancho  al  giogo  si  domava  el  thorc; 
Non  erano  divisi  per  confine 

anchora  i  campi,  et  nesun  per  guadagno 

cercava  le  contrade  pelegrine; 
Ognuno  era  fratello,  ognun  compagno, 

et  era  tanto  amor,  tanta  pietade, 

che  ad  un  fonte  bevea  el  lupo  et  1*  agno; 
Non  eran  lancia,  non  erano  spade, 

non  era  anchor  la  pecunia  peggiore 

che  '1  guerigiante  ferro  piu  si  fiade; 
La  invidia  allor  vedendo  tanto  amore 

di  questo  bene  ad  se  genero  pene 

e  desto  gaudio  ad  se  diede  dolore. 

>  Lib.  i.  cap.  i.  •  Lib.  ii.  cap.  a. 


THE    CITTA    DI    VITA.  171 

A  little  while  beyond  this  foretaste  of  the  cinque 
cento,  we  find  Charon  copied,  without  addition,  but 
with  a  fatal  loss  of  poetry,  from  the  Inferno1: 

Vidi  Caron  non  molto  da  lontano 

con  una  nave  in  mezo  la  tempesta, 

che  conducea  con  un  gran  remo  in  mano: 
Et  ciaschuno  occhio  chelli  havea  in  testa, 

pareva  come  di  nocte  una  lumiera, 

o  un  falo  quando  si  fa  per  festa. 
Quando  egli  fu  appresso  alia  riviera 

un  mezo  miglio  quasi  o  poco  mancho, 

scacci  sua  faccia  grande  vizza  e  nera. 
Egli  havea  el  capo  di  canuti  biancho, 

el  manto  adosso  rapezato  et  uncto, 

el  volto  si  crudel  non  vidi  un  quancho. 

Last  upon  the  list  of  Dantesque  imitators  stands 
Matteo  Palmieri,  a  learned  Florentine,  who  composed 
his  Cittb  di  Vita  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
This  poem  won  for  its  author  from  Marsilio  Ficino 
the  title  of  Poeta  Theologicus. 2  Its  chief  interest  at  the 
present  time  is  that  the  theology  expressed  in  it 
brought  suspicion  of  heresy  on  Palmieri.  He  held 
Origen's  opinion  that  the  souls  of  men  were  rebel 
angels.  How  a  doctrine  of  this  kind  could  be 
rendered  in  painting  is  not  clear.  Yet  Giorgio  Vasari 
tells  us  that  a  picture  executed  for  Matteo  Palmieri 
by  Sandro  Botticelli,  which  represented  the  Assump- 
tion of  the  Virgin  into  the  celestial  hierarchy — Powers, 
Princedoms,  Thrones  and  Dominations  ranged  around 
her  in  concentric  circles — fell  under  the  charge  of  hetero- 
doxy. The  altar  in  S.  Pietro  Maggiore  where  it 
was  placed  had  to  be  interdicted,  and  the  picture 

1  Lib.  ii.  cap.  7. 

•  S6e  Flcini  Epistolcc,  1495,  folio  17.     If  possible,  I  will  insert  some 
further  notice  of  Palmieri's  poem  in  an  Appendix. 


\^^  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

veiled  from  sight.1  The  story  forms  a  curious  link 
between  this  last  scion  of  medieval  literature  and  the 
painting  of  the  Renaissance.  After  Palmieri  the 
meter  of  the  Divine  Comedy  was  chiefly  used  for 
satire  and  burlesque.  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  adapted  its 
grave  rhythms  to  parody  in  /  Beoni.  Berni  used  it 
for  the  Capitoli  of  the  Pesche  and  the  Peste.  At 
Florence  it  became  the  recognized  meter  for  obscene 
and  frivolous  compositions,  which  delighted  the 
Academicians  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  people, 
meanwhile,  continued  to  employ  it  in  Lamenti,  his- 
torical compositions,  and  personal  Capitoli.2  Thus 
Cellini  wrote  his  poem  called  /  Carceri  in  terza  rima, 
and  Giovanni  Santi  used  it  for  his  precious  but  un- 
poetical  Chronicle  of  Italian  affairs.  Both  Benivieni 
and  Michelangelo  Buonarroti  composed  elegies  in  this 
meter;  and  numerous  didactic  eclogues  of  the  pastoral 
poets  might  be  cited  in  which  it  served  for  analogue 
to  Latin  elegiacs.  In  the  Sacre  Rappresentazioni  it 
sometimes  interrupted  ottava  rima,  o»»  the  occasion 
of  a  set  discourse  or  sermon.3  Both  Ariosto  and 
Alamanni  employed  it  in  their  satires.  From  these 
brief  notices  it  will  be  seen  that  terza  rima  during  the 
Renaissance  period  was  reserved  for  dissertational, 
didactic  and  satiric  themes,  the  Capitoli  of  the  bur- 
lesque poets  being  parodies  of  grave  scholastic  lucu- 


i  See  Vasari  (Lemonnier,  1849),  vo1-  v-  P-  !1S»  and  note- 
by  Botticelli  is  now  in  England. 

*  I  may  refer  curious  readers  to  two  Lamenti  of  Pre  Agostino,  con 
demned  to  the  cage  or  Chebba  at  Venice  for  blasphemy.    They  are  given 
at  length  by  Mutinelli,  Annali  Urbani  di  Venezia,  pp.  352-356. 

»  For  instance,  "  Un  Miracolo  di  S.  M.  Maddalena,"  in  D'Ancona's 
Sacre  Rappr,  vol.  i.  p.  397. 


S.   CATHERINE'S  LETTERS.  173 

brations.     But  no  one  now  attempted  an  heroic  poem 
in  this  verse.1 

To  give  a  full  account  of  Italian  prose  during  this 
period  of  transition  from  the  middle  age  to  the 
Renaissance  is  not  easy.  At  the  close  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  S.  Catherine  of  Siena  sustained  the 
purity  and  "  dove-like  simplicity  "  of  the  earlier  trecento 
style,  with  more  of  fervor  and  personal  power  than 
any  subsequent  writer.  Her  letters,  whether  addressed 
to  Popes  and  princes  on  the  politics  of  Italy,  or  dealing 
with  private  topics  of  religious  experience,  are  models 
of  the  purest  Tuscan  diction.2  They  have  the  gar- 
rulity and  over-unctuous  sweetness  of  the  Fioretti  and 
Leggende.  But  these  qualities,  peculiar  to  medieval 
piety  among  Italians,  are  balanced  by  untutored  elo- 
quence which  borders  on  sublimity.  Without  de- 
liberate art  or  literary  aim,  the  spirit  of  a  noble 
woman  speaks  from  the  heart  in  Catherine's  letters. 
The  fervor  of  her  feeling  suggests  poetic  imagery. 
The  justice  of  her  perception  dictates  weighty  sen- 
tences. The  intensity  with  which  she  realizes  the 
unseen  world  of  spiritual  emotion,  gives  dramatic 
movement  to  her  exhortations,  expositions  and  en- 
treaties. These  rare  excellences  of  a  style,  where 
spontaneity  surpasses  artifice,  are  combined  in  the 

«  It  would  be  an  interesting  study  to  trace  the  vicissitudes  ot  terza 
rima  from  the  Paradiso  of  Dante,  through  the  Quadriregio  and  Ditta- 
mondo,  to  Lorenzo  de*  Medici's  Beoni  and  La  Casa's  Capitolo  del  Forno. 
In  addition  to  what  I  have  observed  above,  it  occurs  to  me  to  mention 
the  semi-popular  terza  rima  poems  in  Alberti's  Accademia  Coronaria 
(Bonucci's  edition  of  Alberti,  vol.  i.  pp.  clxxv.  et  seq.)  and  Boiardo's 
comedy  of  Timone.  Both  illustrate  the  didactic  use  of  the  meter. 

1  Le  Lettere  di  S.  Caterina  da  Siena,  Firenze,  Barbera,  1860.  Edited 
and  furnished  with  a  copious  commentary  by  Niccolo  Tommaseo.  Four 
•relumes. 


174  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

famous  epistle  to  her  confessor,  Raimondo  da  Capua, 
describing  the  execution  of  Niccol6  Tuldo.1  He  was 
a  young  man  of  Perugia,  condemned  to  death  for 
some  act  of  insubordination.  Catherine  visited  him 
in  prison,  and  induced  him  to  take  the  Sacrament 
with  her  for  the  first  time.  He  besought  her  to  be 
present  with  him  at  the  place  of  execution.  Accord- 
ingly she  waited  for  him  there,  praying  to  Mary  and 
to  Catherine,  the  virgin  saint  of  Alexandria,  laying 
her  own  neck  upon  the  block,  and  entering  into  har- 
mony so  rapt  with  those  celestial  presences  that  the 
multitude  of  men  who  were  around  her  disappeared 
from  view.  What  followed,  must  be  told  in  her  own 
words : 

Poi  egli  giunse,  come  uno  agnello  mansueto:  e  vedendomi,  com- 
incib  a  ridere;  e  volse  che  io  gli  facesse  il  segno  della  croce.  E  rice- 
vuto  il  segno,  dissi  io:  "  Giuso !  alle  nozze,  fratello  mio  dolce  !  che 
tosto  sarai  alia  vita  durabile."  Posesi  qui  con  grande  mansuetudine; 
e  io  gli  distesi  il  collo,  e  chinami  gift,  e  rammentalli  il  sangue  dell'  Ag- 
nello. La  bocca  sua  non  diceva  se  non,  Gesti,  e  Catarina.  E,  cosi 
dicendo,  ricevetti  il  capo  nelle  mani  mie,  fermando  1*  occhio  nella  di- 
vina  bonta  e  dicendo:  "  Io  voglio." 

Allora  si  vedeva  Dio-e-Uomo,  come  si  vedesse  la  chiarita  del  sole; 
e  stava  aperto,  e  riceveva  il  sangue;  nel  sangue  suo  uno  fuoco  di  de- 
siderio  santo,  dato  e  nascosto  nell"  anima  sua  per  grazia;  riceveva 
nel  fuoco  della  divina  sua  carita.  Poiche  ebbe  ricevuto  il  sangue  e 
il  desiderio  suo,  ed  egli  ricevette  1'anima  sua,  la  quale  mise  nella 
bottiga  aperta  del  costato  suo,  pieno  di  misericordia;  manifestando 
la  prima  Verita.  che  per  sola  grazia  e  misericordia  egli  il  riceveva,  e 
non  per  veruna  altra  operazione.  O  quanto  era  dolce  e  inestimabilc 
a  vedere  la  bontk  di  Dio  ! 

The  sudden  transition  from  this  narrative  of  fact 
to  the  vision  of  Christ — from  the  simple  style  of 
ordinary  speech  to  ecstasy  inebriated  with  the  cross — 
is  managed  with  a  power  that  truth  alone  could  yield 

1  Op.  cit,  vol.  iv.  pp.  5-12. 


WRITERS    OF  EPISTLES   AND    HISTORIES.  175 

A  dramatist  might  have  conceived  it;  but  only  a  saint 
who  lived  habitually  in  both  worlds  of  loving  service 
and  illumination,  could  thus  have  made  it  natural.  This 
is  the  noblest  and  the  rarest  realism. 

If  we  trust  the  testimony  of  contemporary  chro- 
niclers, S.  Bernardino  of  Siena  in  the  pulpit  shared 
Catherine's  power  of  utterance,  at  once  impressive 
and  simple.1  No  doubt  the  preachers  of  the  quattro- 
cento were  influential  in  maintaining  a  tradition  of 
prose  rhetoric.  But  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  sermons, 
even  when  ably  reported,  to  preserve  their  fullness 
and  their  force.  Not  less  important  for  the  formation 
of  a  literary  style  were  the  letters  and  dispatches  of 
embassadors.  Though  at  this  period  all  ceremonial 
orations,  briefs,  state  documents  and  epistles  between 
Courts  and  commonwealths  were  composed  in  Latin, 
still  the  secret  correspondence  of  envoys  with  their 
home  governments  gave  occasion  for  the  use  of  the 
vernacular;  and  even  humanists  expressed  their 
thoughts  occasionally  in  the  mother  tongue.  Coluccio 
Salutati,  for  example,  whose  Latin  letters  were  re- 
garded as  models  of  epistolary  style,  employed  Italian 
in  less  formal  communications  with  his  office.  These 
early  documents  of  studied  Tuscan  writing  are  now 
more  precious  than  his  formal  Ciceronian  imitations. 
Private  letters  may  also  be  mentioned  among  the  best 
sources  for  studying  the  growth  of  Italian  prose, 
although  we  have  not  much  material  to  judge  by.2 

1  See,  for  example,  the  passages  from  Graziani's  Chronicle  of  Pe- 
rugia quoted  by  me  in  Appendix  IV.  to  Age  of  the  Despots, 

•  See  Alcune  Lettere  familiari  del  Sec.  xiv,  Bologna,  Romagnoli, 
1868.  This  collection  contains  letters  by  Lemmo  Balducci  (1333-1389), 
Filippo  dell' Antella  (circa  1398),  Dora  del  Bene,  Lanfredino  Lanfredini 


176  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY 

The  correspondence  of  Alessandra  degli  Strozzi,  re- 
cently edited  by  Signor  Cesare  Guasti,  is  not  only 
valuable  for  the  light  it  casts  upon  contemporary 
manners,  but  also  for  the  illustration  of  the  Floren- 
tine idiom  as  written  by  a  woman  of  noble  birth.1 
Of  Poliziano's,  Pulci's  and  Lorenzo  de'  Medici's  letters 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  in  a  somewhat  different 
connection  later  on. 

The  historiographers  of  the  Renaissance  thought 
it  below  their  dignity  to  use  any  language  but  Latin.1 
At  the  same  time,  vernacular  annalists  abounded  in 
Italy,  whose  labors  were  of  no  small  value  in  forming 
the  prose-style  of  the  quattrocento.  After  the  Villani, 
Florence  could  boast  a  whole  chain  of  writers,  begin- 
ning with  Marchionne  Stefani,  including  Gino  Capponi, 
the  spirited  chronicler  of  the  Ciompi  rebellion,  and 
extending  to  Goro  Dati  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  A  little  later,  Giovanni  Cavalcanti,  in  his 
Florentine  Histories,  proved  how  the  simple  diction 
of  the  preceding  age  was  being  spoiled  by  false 
classicism.3  This  work  is  doubly  valuable — both  as  a 
record  of  the  great  Albizzi  oligarchy  and  their  final 
conquest  by  the  Medici,  and  also  as  a  monument  of 
the  fusion  which  was  being  made  between  the  popular 
and  humanistic  styles.  The  chronicles  of  other  Italian 
cities — Ferrara,  Cremona,  Rome,  Pisa,  Bologna,  and 
even  Siena — show  less  purity  of  language  than  the 

(born  about  1345),  Coluccio  Salutati  (1330-1406),  Giorgio  Scali  (died 
1381),  and  Marchionne  Stefani  (died  1385). 

i  Alessandra  Macinghi  negli  Strozzi,  Lettere  di  una  Gentildonna 
Fiorentina  del  secolo  xv,  Firenze,  Sansoni,  1877. 

»  See  Revival  of  Learning,  chap.  4,  and  Age  of  the  Despots,  chap.  5. 

»  Istorie  Florentine  scritte  da  Giov,  Cavalcanti,  2  vols.  Firenze,  1838. 


CORIO   AND   MATARAZZO.  177 

Florentine.1  Italian  is  often  mixed  with  vulgar  Latin, 
and  phrases  borrowed  from  unpolished  local  dialects 
abound.  It  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  century  that 
two  great  writers  of  history  in  the  vernacular  arose 
outside  the  walls  of  Florence.  These  were  Corio,  the 
historian  of  Milan,  and  Matarazzo,  the  annalist  of 
Perugia.2  In  Corio's  somewhat  stiff  and  cumbrous 
periods  we  trace  the  effort  of  a  foreigner  to  gain  by 
study  what  the  Tuscans  owed  to  nature.  Yet  he 
never  suffered  this  stylistic  preoccupation  to  spoil  his 
qualities  as  an  historian.  His  voluminous  narrative  is 
a  mine  of  accurate  information,  illustrated  with  vivid 
pictures  of  manners  and  carefully  considered  portraits 
of  eminent  men.  Reading  it,  we  cannot  but  regret 
that  Poggio  and  Bruno,  Navagero  and  Bembo,  judged 
it  necessary  to  tell  the  tales  of  Florence  and  of  Venice 
in  a  pseudo-Livian  Latin.  The  "  History  of  Milan  "  is 
worth  twenty  of  such  humanistic  exercises  in  rhetoric. 
Matarazzo  displays  excellences  of  a  different,  but  of 
a  rarer  order.  Unlike  Corio,  he  was  not  anxious  to 
show  familiarity  with  rules  of  Tuscan  writing,  or  to 
build  again  the  periods  of  Boccaccio's  ceremonious 
style.  His  language  bears  the  stamp  of  its  Perugian 
origin.  It  is,  at  the  same  time,  unaffectedly  dramatic 

1  Besides  Muratori's  great  collection  and  the  Archivio  Storico,  the 
Chronicles  of  Lombard,  Umbrian,  and  Tuscan  towns  have  been  sepa- 
rately printed  too  voluminously  for  mention  m  a  note. 

*  L.'  Historia  di  Milano  volgarmente  scritta  dall*  eccellentissimo 
oratore  M.  Bernardino  Corio,  in  Vinegia,  per  Giovan  Maria  Bonelli. 
MDLIIII.     "Cronaca  della  Citta  di  Perugia  dal   1492  al  1503  di  Fran 
cesco  Matarazzo  detto  Maturanzio,"  Archivio  Storico  Italiano,  vol.  xvi. 
par.  ii.     Of  Corio's  History  I  have  made  frequent  use  in  the  Age  of  the 
Despots.     It  is  a  book  that  repays  frequent  and  attentive  reperusals, 
Those  students  who  desire  to  gain  familiarity  at  first  hand  with  Renais 
sance  life  cannot  be  directed  to  a  ourer  source. 


178  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

and  penetrated  with  the  charm  of  a  distinguished 
personality.  No  one  can  read  the  tragedy  of  the 
Baglioni  in  this  wonderful  romance  without  acknowl- 
edging that  he  is  in  the  hands  of  a  great  writer.  The 
limpidity  of  the  trecento  has  here  survived,  and,  blend- 
ing with  Renaissance  enthusiasm  for  physical  beauty 
and  antique  heroism,  has  produced  a  work  of  art 
unrivaled  in  its  kind.1 

Having  advanced  so  far  as  to  speak  in  this  chapter 
of  Corio  and  Matarazzo,  I  shall  take  occasion  to  notice 
a  book  which,  appearing  for  the  first  time  in  1476, 
may  fairly  be  styled  the  most  important  work  of  Italian 
prose-fiction  belonging  to  the  fifteenth  century.  This 
is  the  Nauellino  of  Masuccio  Guardato,  a  nobleman  of 
Salerno,  secretary  to  the  Prince  Roberto  Sanseverino, 
and  resident  throughout  his  life  at  the  Court  of  Naples.2 
The  Novellino  is  a  collection  of  stories,  fifty  in 
number,  arranged  in  five  parts,  which  treat  respec- 
tively of  hypocrisy  and  the  monastic  vices,  jealousy, 
feminine  incontinence,  the  contrasts  of  pathos  and  of 
humor,  and  the  generosity  of  princes.  Each  Novella 
is  dedicated  to  a  noble  man  or  woman  of  Neapolitan 
society,  and  is  followed  by  a  reflective  discourse,  in 
which  the  author  personally  addresses  his  audience. 
Masuccio  declares  himself  the  disciple  of  Boccaccio  and 
Juvenal.8  Of  the  Roman  poet's  spirit  he  has  plenty; 

'  In  Studies  in  Italy  and  Greece,  article  "  Perugia,"  I  have  dealt 
more  at  large  with  Matarazzo's  Chronicle  than  space  admits  of  here. 

*  //  Novellino  di  Masuccio  Salernitano.  Edited  by  Luigi  Settem- 
brini.  Napoli,  Morano,  1874. 

J  Introduction  to  Part  iii.  op.  cit.  p.  239.  "Cognoscerai  i  lasciati 
vestigi  del  vetusto  satiro  Giovenale,  e  del  famoso  commendato  poeta 
Boccaccio,  1'  ornatissimo  idioma  e  stile  del  quale  ti  hai  sempre  ingeg- 
nato  de  imitare." 


MASUCCICTS  NOVELS.  179 

for  he  gives  the  rein  to  rage  in  language  of  the  most 
indignant  virulence.  Of  Boccaccio's  idiom  and  style, 
though  we  can  trace  the  student's  emulation,  he  can 
boast  but  little.  Masuccio  never  reached  the  Latin  - 
istic  smoothness  of  his  model;  and  while  he  wrote 
Italian,  his  language  was  far  from  being  Tuscan. 
Phrases  culled  from  southern  dialects  are  frequent; 
and  the  structure  of  the  period  is  often  ungrammatical. 
Masuccio  was  not  a  member  of  any  humanistic  clique. 
He  lived  among  the  nobles  of  a  royal  Court,  and  knew 
the  common  people  intimately.  This  double  experience 
is  reflected  in  his  language  and  his  modes  of  thought. 
Both  are  unalloyed  by  pedantry,  and  precious  for  the 
student  of  contemporary  manners. 

The  interest  of  the  Novellino  is  great  when  we  re- 
gard it  as  the  third  collection  of  Novelle,  coming  after 
Boccaccio's  and  Sacchetti's,  and,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  art,  occupying  a  middle  place  between  them 
The  tales  of  the  Decameron  were  originally  recited  at 
Naples;  and  though  Boccaccio  was  a  thorough  Tus- 
can, he  borrowed  something  from  the  south  which  gave 
width,  warmth  and  largeness  to  his  writing.  Masuccio 
is  wholly  Neapolitan  in  tone;  but  he  seeks  such  charm 
of  presentation  and  variety  of  matter  as  shall  make  his 
book  worthy  to  take  rank  in  general  literature.  Sac- 
chetti  has  more  of  a  purely  local  flavor.  He  is  no 
less  Florentine  than  Masuccio  is  Neapolitan;  and, 
unlike  Masuccio,  he  has  taken  little  pains  to  adapt  his 
work  to  other  readers  than  his  fellow-citizens.  Boc- 
caccio embraces  all  human  life,  seen  in  the  light  of 
vivid  fancy  by  a  bourgeois  who  was  also  a  great  comic 
and  romantic  poet.  Sacchetti  describes  the  borghi* 


l8o  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

contrade,  and  piazze  of  Florence;  and  his  speech  is 
seasoned  with  rare  Tuscan  salt  of  wit.  Masuccio's 
world  is  that  of  the  free-living  southern  noble.  He  is 
penetrated  with  aristocratic  feeling,  treats  willingly  of 
arms  and  jousts  and  warfare,  telling  the  tales  of  knights 
and  ladies  to  a  courtly  company. l  At  the  same  time,  the 
figures  of  the  people  move  with  incomparable  vivacity 
across  the  stage;  and  his  transcripts  from  life  reveal 
the  careless  interpenetration  of  classes  to  which  he  was 
accustomed  in  Calabria.2  Some  of  his  stories  are  as 
simply  bourgeois  as  any  of  Sacchetti's. s 

When  we  compare  Masuccio  with  Boccaccio  we 
find  many  points  of  divergence,  due  to  differences  of 
temperament,  social  sympathies  and  local  circumstance. 
Boccaccio  is  witty  and  malicious;  Masuccio  humorous 
and  poignant.  Boccaccio  laughs  indulgently  at  vices; 
Masuccio  scourges  them.  Boccaccio  makes  a  jest  of 
superstition;  Masuccio  thunders  against  the  hypocrites 
who  bring  religion  into  contempt.  Boccaccio  turns  the 
world  round  for  his  recreation,  submitting  its  follies  to 
the  subtle  play  of  analytical  fancy.  Masuccio  is 
terribly  in  earnest;  whether  sympathetic  or  vitupera- 
tive, he  makes  the  voice  of  his  heart  heard.  Boccaccio's 
pictures  are  toned  with  a  rare  perception  of  harmony 
and  delicate  gradation.  Masuccio  brings  what  strike.; 
his  sense  before  us  by  a  few  firm  touches.  Boccaccio 

1  For  an  instance  of  Masuccio's  feudal  feeling,  take  this.  A  knight 
kills  a  licentious  friar — "  alquanto  pentito  per  avere  le  sue  possenti  brac- 
cia  con  la  morte  di  un  Fra  Minore  contaminate  "  (op.  cit.  p.  13).  It 
emerges  in  his  description  of  the  Order  of  the  Ermine  (ibid.  p.  240).  It 
is  curious  to  compare  this  with  his  strong  censure  of  the  point  of  honor 
(pp.  388,  389)  in  a  story  which  has  the  same  blunt  sense  as  Ariosto's 
episode  of  Giocondo.  The  Italian  here  prevails  over  the  noble. 

»  See  especially  Nov.  xi.  and  xxxviii.      *  i\ov.  ii.  iii.  v.  xi.  xviii.  xxiv 


MASUCCI&S   ART.  181 

shows  far  finer  literary  tact.  Yet  there  is  something 
in  the  unpremeditated  passion,  pathos,  humor,  gross- 
ness,  anger  and  enjoyment  of  Masuccio — a  chord  of 
masculine  and  native  strength,  a  note  of  vigorous 
reality — that  arrests  attention  even  more  imperiously 
than  the  prepared  effects  of  the  Decameron.  One 
point  of  undoubted  excellence  can  be  claimed  for 
Masuccio.  He  was  a  great  tragic  artist  in  the  rough, 
and  his  comedy  displays  an  uncouth  Rabelaisian 
realism.  The  lights  and  shadows  cast  upon  his  scene 
are  brusque — like  the  sunlight  and  the  shadow  on  a 
Southern  city;  whereas  the  painting  of  Boccaccio  is 
distinguished  by  exquisite  blendings  of  color  and 
chiaroscuro  in  subordination  to  the  chosen  key. 

Masuccio  displays  his  real  power  in  his  serious 
Novelle,  when  he  gives  vent  to  his  furious  hatred  of  a 
godless  clergy,  or  describes  some  dreadful  incident, 
like  the  tragedy  of  the  two  lovers  in  the  lazar-house.1 
Scarcely  less  dramatic  are  his  tales  of  comic  sensu- 
ality.2 Nor  has  he  a  less  vivid  sense  of  beauty. 
Some  of  his  occasional  pictures — the  meeting  of  youths 
and  maidens  in  the  evening  light  of  Naples ;  the  lover 
who  changed  his  jousting-badge  because  his  lady  was 
untrue;  the  tournament  at  Rimini;  the  portrait  of 
Eugenia  disguised  as  a  ragazzo  de  omo  c£  arme — break 
upon  us  with  the  freshness  of  a  smile  or  sunbeam.3 

1  Nov.  xxxi. — Masuccio's  peculiar  animosity  against  the  clergy  may 
be  illustrated  by  comparing  his  story  of  the  friar  who  persuaded  the  nun 
that  she  was  chosen  by  the  Holy  Ghost  (Nov.  ii.)  with  Boccaccio's  tale 
of  the  Angel  Gabriel.  See,  too,  the  scene  in  the  convent  (Nov.  vi.),  the 
comedy  of  S.  Bernardino's  sermon  (Nov.  xvi.),  the  love-adventures  of 
Cardinal  Roderigo  Borgia. 

«  For  example,  Nov.  vii.  xiii.  v. 

»  Op.  tit.  pp.  292,  282.  391,  379. 


1 82  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

We  might  almost  detect  a  vein  of  Spanish  imagination 
in  certain  of  his  episodes — in  the  midnight  ride  of  the 
living  monk  after  the  dead  friar  strapped  upon  his 
palfrey,  and  in  the  ghastly  murder  of  the  woman  and 
the  dwarf.1  The  lowest  classes  of  the  people  are  pre- 
sented with  a  salience  worthy  of  Velasquez — cobblers, 
tailors,  prostitutes,  preaching  friars,  miracle-workers, 
relic- mongers,  bawds,  ruffians,  lepers,  highway  rob- 
bers, gondoliers,  innkeepers,  porters,  Moorish  slaves, 
the  panders  to  base  appetites  and  every  sort  of  sin.3 
Masuccio  felt  no  compunction  in  portraying  vicious 
people  as  he  knew  them ;  but  he  reserved  language  of 
scathing  vituperation  for  their  enormities.3 

From  so  much  that  is  coarse,  dreadful,  and  re- 
volting, the  romance  of  Masuccio's  more  genial  tales 
detaches  itself  with  charming  grace  and  delicacy. 
Nothing  in  Boccaccio  is  lovelier  than  the  story  of  the 
girl  who  puts  on  armor  and  goes  at  night  to  kill  her 
faithless  lover;  or  that  of  Mariotto  and  Giannozza, 
which  is  substantially  the  same  as  Romeo  and  Juliet; 
or  that  of  Virginio  Baglioni  and  Eugenia,  surprised 
and  slain  by  robbers  near  Brescia;  or  that  of  Mar- 
chetto  and  Lanzilao,  the  comrades  in  arms,  which  has 
points  in  common  with  Palamon  and  Arcite ;  or,  lastly, 
that  of  the  young  Malem  and  his  education  by  Giu- 

1  Nov.  i.  and  xxviii.    The  second  of  these  stories  is  dedicated  to 
Francesco  of  Aragon,  who,  born  in  1461,  could  not  have  been  more 
than  fifteen  when  this  frightful  tale  of  lust  and  blood  was  sent  him 
Nothing  paints  the  manners  of  the  time  better  than  this  fact. 

•  See  op.  cit.  pp.  28,  68,  89,  141,  256,  273,  275,  380,  341,  343. 

1  For  specimens  of  his  invective  read  pp.  517,  273,  84,  275,  55,  65, 
534.  I  have  collected  some  of  these  passages,  bearing  on  the  clergy,  in 
a  note  to  p.  458  of  my  Age  of  the  Despots,  2nd  edition.  Xo  wonder 
ihat  Masuccio's  book  was  put  upon  the  Index ! 


LEO   BATTISTA    ALBERTl.  183 

dotto  Gambacorto.1  It  is  the  blending  of  so  many 
elements — the  interweaving  of  tragedy  and  comedy, 
satire  and  pathos,  grossness  and  sentiment,  in  a  style 
of  unadorned  sincerity,  that  places  Masuccio  high 
among  novelists.  Had  his  language  been  as  pure  as 
that  of  the  earlier  Tuscan  or  the  later  Italian  authors, 
he  would  probably  rank  only  second  to  Boccaccio  in 
the  estimation  even  of  his  fellow-countrymen.  A  for- 
eigner, less  sensitive  to  niceties  of  idiom,  may  be 
excused  for  recognizing  him  as  at  least  Bandello's 
equal  in  the  story-teller's  art.  In  moral  quality  he  is 
superior  not  only  to  Bandello,  but  also  to  Boccaccio. 
The  greatest  writer  of  Italian  prose  in  the  fifteenth 
century  was  a  man  of  different  stamp  from  Masuccio. 
Gifted  with  powers  short  only  of  the  very  highest, 
Leo  Battista  Alberti  exercised  an  influence  over  the 
spirit  of  his  age  and  race  which  was  second  to  none 
but  Leonardo's.2  Sacchetti,  Ser  Giovanni,  Masuccio, 
and  the  ordinary  tribe  of  chroniclers  pretended  to  no 
humanistic  culture.3  Alberti,  on  the  contrary,  was 
educated  at  Bologna,  where  he  acquired  the  scientific 
knowledge  of  his  age,  together  with  such  complete 
mastery  of  Latin  that  a  work  of  his  youth,  the  comedy 
Philodoxius,  passed  for  a  genuine  product  of  antiquity. 
This  man  of  many-sided  genius  came  into  the  world 
too  soon  for  the  perfect  exercise  of  his  singular  facul- 

'  Nov.  xxvii.  xxxiii.  xxxv.  xxxvii.  xlviii. 

»  See  Revival  of  Learning,  pp.  341-344,  for  some  account  ot  Al- 
berti's  life  and  place  among  the  humanists;  Fine  Arts,  p.  74,  for  his 
skill  as  an  architect. 

1  Sacchetti,  we  have  seen,  called  himself  uomo  discolo;  Ser  Giovanni 
proclaimed  himself  a  pecorone,  Masuccio  had  the  culture  of  a  noble- 
man; Corio  and  Matarazzo,  if  we  are  right  in  identifying  the  latter  with 
Francesco  Maturanzio,  were  both  men  of  considerable  erudition. 


184  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

ties.  Whether  we  regard  him  from  the  point  of  view 
of  art,  of  science,  or  of  literature,  he  occupies  in  each 
department  the  position  of  precursor,  pioneer  and  in- 
dicator. Always  original  and  always  fertile,  he  proph- 
esied of  lands  he  was  not  privileged  to  enter,  leaving 
the  memory  of  dim  and  varied  greatness  rather  than 
any  solid  monument  behind  him.1  Of  his  mechanical 
discoveries  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak;  nor  can  I 
estimate  the  value  of  his  labors  in  the  science  of 
perspective.2  It  is  as  a  man  of  letters  that  he  comes 
oefore  us  in  this  chapter. 

The  date  of  Alberti's  birth  is  uncertain.  But  we 
may  fix  it  probably  at  about  the  year  1406.  He  was 
born  at  Venice,  where  his  father,  exiled  with  the  other 
members  of  his  noble  house  by  the  Albizzi,  had  taken 
refuge.  After  Cosimo  de'  Medici's  triumph  over  the 
Albizzi  in  1434,  Leo  Battista  returned  to  Florence.3 
It  was  as  a  Florentine  citizen  that  his  influence  in 
restoring  the  vulgar  literature  to  honor,  was  destined 
to  be  felt.  He  did  not,  however,  reside  continuously 

1  The  most  charming  monument  of  Alberti's  memory  is  the  Life  by 
an  anonymous  writer,  published  in  Muratori  and  reprinted  in  Bonucci's 
edition,  vol.  i.  Bonucci  conjectures,  without  any  substantial  reason,  that 
it  was  composed  by  Alberti  himself. 

*  For  the  Camera  Optica,  Reticolo  de'  dipintori,  and  Bolide  Al- 
bertiana,  see  the  Preface  (pp.  Ixv.-lxix.)  to  Anicio  Bonucci's  edition  ot 
the  Opere  Volgari  di  L.  B.  Alberti,  Firenze,  1843,  five  vols.  All  refer- 
ences will  be  made  to  this  comprehensive  but  uncritical  collection.  Hu- 
bert Janitschek's  edition  of  the  Treatises  on  Art  should  be  consulted  for 
its  introduction  and  carefully  prepared  text — Vienna,  1877,  in  the  Quel- 
lenschriften  ftit  Kunstgeschichte. 

»  The  sentence  of  banishment  was  first  removed  in  1428;  but  the 
rights  of  burghership  were  only  restored  to  the  Alberti  in  1434.  Leo 
Battista  finished  the  Treatise  on  Painting  at  Florence,  Sept.  7,  1435 
(see  Janitschek,  op.  cit.  p.  iii.),  and  dedicated  it  to  Brunelleschi,  July  17, 
1436.  From  that  dedication  it  would  seem  that  he  had  only  recently 
returned. 


ALBERT!' S    LIFE    AND   EXILE.  185 

in  the  city  of  his  ancestors,  but  moved  from  town  to 
town,  with  a  restlessness  that  savored  somewhat  of 
voluntary  exile.  It  is,  indeed,  noteworthy  how  many 
of  the  greatest  Italians — Dante,  Giotto,  Petrarch, 
Alberti,  Lionardo,  Tasso:  men  who  powerfully  helped 
to  give  the  nation  intellectual  coherence — were  wan- 
derers. They  sought  their  home  and  saw  their 
spiritual  patria  in  no  one  abiding-place.1  Thus,  amid 
the  political  distractions  of  the  Italian  people,  rose 
that  ideal  of  unity  to  which  Rome,  Naples,  Florence, 
Venice,  Ferrara  contributed,  but  which  owned  no 
metropolis.  Florence  remained  to  the  last  the  brain  of 
Italy.  Yet  Florence,  by  stepmotherly  ingratitude,  by 
Dante's  exile,  by  the  alienation  of  Petrarch,  by  Alberti's 
homeless  boyhood,  prepared  for  the  race  a  new  culture, 
Tuscan  in  origin,  national  by  diffusion  and  assimila- 
tion. Alberti  died  at  Rome  in  1472,  just  when  Poli- 
ziano,  a  youth  of  eighteen,  was  sounding  the  first 
notes  of  that  music  which  re-awakened  the  Muse  of 
Tuscany  from  her  long  sleep,  and  gave  new  melodies 
to  Italy. 

In  his  proemium  to  the  Third  Book  of  the  Family, 
addressed  to  Francesco  degli  Alberti,  Leo  Battista 
enlarges  on  the  duty  of  cultivating  the  mother  tongue. 2 
After  propounding  the  question  whether  the  loss  of 
the  empire  acquired  by  their  Roman  ancestors — Van- 
tiquo  nostro  imperio  amplissimo — or  the  loss  of  Latin 
as  a  spoken  language — fantiqua  nostra  gentilissima 

1  A  passage  in  the  Delia  Tranquillitd  dell'  Animo  (Op.  Volg.  \.  35), 
shows  how  Alberti  had  lived  into  the  conception  of  cosmopolitan  citizen- 
ship. It  may  be  compared  with  another  in  the  Teogenio  (op.  cit.  iii.  194; 
where  he  argues  that  love  for  one's  country,  even  without  residence  in 
it,  satisfies  the  definition  of  a  citizen. 

1  Op.  cit.  ii.  215-221. 


r 86  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

lingua  latino, — had  been  the  greater  privation  to  the 
Italian  race,  he  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that,  though  the 
former  robbed  them  of  imperial  dignity,  the  latter  was 
the  heavier  misfortune.  To  repair  that  loss  is  the 
duty  of  one  who  had  made  literature  his  study.  If  he 
desires  to  benefit  his  fellow-countrymen,  he  will  not 
use  a  dead  language,  imperfectly  comprehended  by  a 
few  learned  men,  but  will  bend  the  idiom  of  the  people 
to  the  needs  of  erudition.  "  I  willingly  admit,"  he 
argues,  "  that  the  ancient  Latin  tongue  is  very  copious 
and  of  beauty  polished  to  perfection.  Yet  I  do  not 
see  what  our  Tuscan  has  in  it  so  hateful  that  worthy 
matter,  when  conveyed  thereby,  should  be  displeasing 
to  us."  Pedants  who  despise  their  mother  speech,  are 
mostly  men  incapable  of  expressing  themselves  in  the 
latter;  "  and  granted  they  are  right  in  saying  that  the 
ancient  tongue  has  undisputed  authority,  because  so 
many  learned  men  have  employed  it,  the  like  honor 
will  certainly  be  paid  our  language  of  to-day,  if  men 
of  culture  take  the  pains  to  purify  and  polish  it."  He 
then  declares  that,  meaning  to  be  useful  to  the  mem- 
bers of  his  house,  and  to  bequeath  a  record  of  their 
ancient  dignity  to  therr  descendants,  he  has  resolved 
to  choose  the  tongue  in  which  he  will  be  generally 
understood. 

This  proemium  explains  Alberti's  position  in  all 
his  Italian  writings.  Aiming  at  the  general  good, 
convinced  that  a  living  nation  cannot  use  a  dead 
language  with  dignity  and  self-respect,  he  makes  the 
sacrifice  of  a  scholar's  pride  to  public  utility,  and  has 
the  sense  to  perceive  that  the  day  of  erudite  exclusive  - 
ness  is  over.  No  one  felt  more  than  Alberti  the 


ALBERTPS   CONCEPTION   OF  LANGUAGE.  187 

greatness  of  the  antique  Roman  race.  No  one  was 
prouder  of  his  descent  from  those  patricians  of  the 
Commonwealth,  who  tamed  and  ruled  the  world. 
The  memory  of  that  Roman  past,  which  turned  the 
generation  after  Dante  into  a  nation  of  students, 
glowed  in  Alberti's  breast  with  more  than  common 
fervor.1  The  sonorous  introduction  to  the  first  book 
of  the  Family  reviews  the  glories  of  the  Empire  and 
the  decadence  of  Rome  with  a  pomp  of  phrase,  a 
passion  of  eloquence,  that  stir  our  spirit  like  the  tramp 
of  legions  waking  echoes  in  a  ruined  Roman  colon- 
nade.2 Yet  in  spite  of  this  devotion  to  the  past, 
Alberti,  like  Villani,  felt  that  his  Italians  of  the  modern 
age  had  destinies  and  auspices  apart  from  those  of 
ancient  Rome.  He  was  resolved  to  make  the  speech 
of  that  new  nation,  heiress  of  the  Latin  name,  equal  in 
dignity  to  Cicero's  and  Livy's.  What  Rome  had  done, 
Rome's  children  should  do  again.  But  the  times  were 
changed,  and  Alberti  was  a  true  son  of  the  Renais- 
sance. He  approached  his  task  in  the  spirit  of  a 
humanist.  His  style  is  over-charged  with  Latinisms; 
his  periods  are  cumbrous;  his  matter  is  loaded  with 
citations  and  scholastic  instances  drawn  from  the  rep- 

1  Such  phrases  as  inostri  maggiori patrisii  in  Roma  (i.  37),  la  quasi 
dovuta  a  noiper  le  nostre  virtii  da  tutte  le  genti  riverenssia  e  obbedienzia, 
(ii.  218),  nostri  ottimi  passati  Itali  debellarono  e  sot-to  averono  tutte  It 
genti  (ii.  9),  might  be  culled  in  plenty.  Alberti  shows  how  deep  was 
the  Latin  idealism  of  the  Renaissance,  and  how  impossible  it  would  have 
been  for  the  Italians  to  found  their  national  self-consciousness  on  aught 
but  a  recovery  of  the  past. 

*  Especially  the  fine  passage  beginning,  "  Quello  imperio  maraviglioso 
senza  termini,  quel  dominio  di  tutte  le  genti  acquistato  con  nostri  latini 
auspici,  ottenuto  colla  nostra  industria,  amplihcato  con  nostre  armt 
latine  "  (ii.  8);  and  the  apostrophe,  "  E  tu,  Italia  nobilissima,  capo  e  arce 
di  tutto  1"  universe  mondo"  (ib.  13). 


1 88  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

ertories  of  erudition.1  The  vivida  vis  of  inspiration 
fails.  His  work  is  full  of  reminiscences.  The  golden 
simplicity  of  the  trecento  yields  to  a  studied  effort 
after  dignity  of  diction,  culture  of  amplitude.  Still  the 
writer's  energy  is  felt  in  massive  paragraphs  of  power- 
ful declamation.  His  eloquence  does  not  degenerate 
into  frothy  rhetoric;  and  when  he  wills,  he  finds 
pithy  phrases  to  express  the  mind  of  a  philosopher 
and  poet.  That  he  was  born  and  reared  in  exile 
accounts  for  a  lack  of  racy  Tuscan  in  his  prose;  and 
the  structure  of  his  sentences  proves  that  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  think  in  Latin  before  he  made 
Italian  serve  his  turn.2  Still,  though  for  these  and 
other  reasons  his  works  were  not  of  the  kind  to  ani- 
mate a  nation,  they  are  such  as  still  may  be  read  with 
profit  and  with  pleasure  by  men  who  seek  for  solid 
thoughts  in  noble  diction. 

Alberti's  principal  prose  work,  the  Trattato  delta 
Famiglia,  was  written  to  instruct  the  members  of  his 
family  in  the  customs  of  their  ancestors,  and  to  per- 
petuate those  virtues  of  domestic  life  which  he  re- 
garded as  the  sound  foundation  of  a  commonwealth. 
The  first  three  books  are  said  to  have  been  composed 
within  the  space  of  ninety  days  in  Rome,  and  the 

1  An  example  of  servile  submission  to  classical  authority  might  be 
chosen  from  Alberti's  discourse  on  Friendship  (Famiglia,  lib.  iv.  op.  cit. 
ii.  415),  where  he  adduces  Sylla  and  Mark  Antony  in  contradiction  to  his 
general  doctrine  that  only  upright  conversation  among  friends  can  lead 
to  mutual  profit. 

*  Alberti's  loss  of  training  in  the  vernacular  is  noticed  by  his  anony- 
mous biographer  {pp.  cit.  i.  xciv.).  It  will  be  observed  by  students  of 
his  writings  that  he  does  not  speak  of  la  nostra  italiana  but  la  nostra 
toscana  (ii.  221).  Again  (iv.  12)  in  lingua  toscana  is  the  phrase  used 
In  his  dedication  ol  the  Essay  on  Painting  to  Rrunelleschi. 


THE    TREATISE    ON    THE   FAMILY.  189 

fourth  added  at  a  later  period.1  It  is  a  dialogue,  the 
interlocutors  being  relatives  of  the  Alberti  blood. 
Nearly  all  the  illustrative  matter  is  drawn  from  the 
biographies  of  their  forefathers.  The  scene  is  laid  at 
Padua,  and  the  essay  contains  frequent  allusions  to 
their  exile.2  No  word  of  invective  against  the  Al- 
bizzi  who  had  ruined  them,  no  vituperation  of  the 
city  which  had  permitted  the  expulsion  of  her  sons, 
escapes  the  lips  of  any  of  the  speakers.  The  grave 
sadness  that  tempers  the  whole  dialogue,  is  marred 
by  neither  animosity  nor  passion.  Yet  though  the 
Family  was  written  in  exile  for  exiles,  the  ideal  of 
domestic  life  it  paints,  is  Florentine.3  Taken  in  its 
whole  extent,  this  treatise  is  the  most  valuable  docu- 
ment which  remains  to  us  from  the  times  of  the 
oligarchy,  when  Florence  was  waging  war  with  the 
Visconti,  and  before  the  Medici  had  based  their 
despotism  upon  popular  favor.  From  its  pages  a 
tolerably  complete  history  of  a  great  commercial  family 

1  The  anonymous  biographer  says:  "Scripsit  praeterea  et  affinium 
suorum  gratia,  ut  linguae  latinae  ignaris  prodesset,  patrio  sermone  annum 
ante  trigesimum  aetatis  suae  etruscos  libros,  primum,  secundum,  ac  ter- 
tium  de  Familia,  quos  Romae  die  nonagesimo  quam  inchoarat,  absolvit; 
sed  inelimatos  et  asperos  neque  usquequaquam  etruscos.  .  .  .  post  an- 
nos  tres,  quam  primes  ediderat,  quartum  librum  ingratis  protulit "  (pp. 
cit.  i.  xciv.  c.).  It  appears  from  a  reference  in  Book  ii.  (op.  cit.  ii.  xxviii.) 
that  the  Treatise  was  still  in  process  of  composition  after  1438;  and  there 
are  strong  reasons  for  believing  that  Book  iii.,  as  it  is  now  numbered, 
was  written  separately  and  after  the  rest  of  the  dialogue. 

•  Note  especially  the  passage  in  Book  iii.,  op.  cit.  ii.  256,  et.  seq. 

•  There  is,  I  think,  good  reason  to  believe  the  testimony  of  the  anony- 
mous biographer,  who  says  this  Treatise  was  written  before  Alberti's 
thirtieth  year;  and  if  he  returned  to  Florence  in  1434,  we  must  take 
the  date  of  his  birth  about  1404.     The  scene  of  the  Tranquillitd  dell 
Animo  is  laid  in  the  Duomo  at  Florence;  we  may  therefore  believe  it  to 
have  been  a  later  work,  and  its  allusions  to  the  Famiglia  are,  in  my 
opinion,  trustworthy. 


190  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

might  be  extracted;  and  this  study  would  form  a  valu- 
able commentary  on  the  public  annals  of  the  common- 
wealth during  the  earlier  portion  of  the  fifteenth  century.1 
The   first  book   of  the   Famiglia   deals   with   the 

1  The  pedigree  prefixed  to  the  Dialogue  in  Bonucci's  edition  would 
help  the  student  in  his  task.  I  will  here  cite  the  principal  passages  of 
importance  I  have  noticed.  In  volume  ii.  p.  102,  we  find  a  list  of  the 
Alberti  remarkable  for  literary,  scientific,  artistic,  and  ecclesiastical  dis- 
tinctions. On  p.  124  we  read  of  their  dispersion  over  the  Levant,  Greece, 
Spain,  France,  England,  Belgium,  Germany,  and  the  chief  Italian  towns. 
Their  misfortunes  in  exile  are  touchingly  alluded  to  with  a  sobriety  of 
phrase  that  dignifies  the  grief  it  veils,  in  the  noble  passage  beginning 
with  p.  256.  Their  ancient  splendor  in  the  tournaments  and  games  of 
Florence,  when  the  people  seemed  to  have  eyes  only  for  men  of  the 
Alberti  blood,  is  described  on  p.  228;  their  palaces  and  country  houses 
on  p.  279.  A  list  of  the  knights,  generals,  and  great  lawyers  of  the 
Casa  Alberti  is  given  at  p.  346.  The  honesty  of  their  commercial  deal- 
ings and  their  reputation  for  probity  form  the  themes  of  a  valuable  di- 
gression, pp.  204-206,  where  we  learn  the  extent  of  their  trade  and  the 
magnitude  of  their  contributions  to  the  State-expenses.  On  p.  210  there 
is  a  statement  that  this  house  alone  imported  from  Flanders  enough  wool 
to  supply  the  cloth-trade,  not  only  of  Florence,  but  also  of  the  larger  part 
of  Tuscany.  The  losses  of  a  great  commercial  family  are  reckoned  on 
P-  357;  while  p.  400  supplies  the  story  ot  one  vast  loan  of  80,000  golden 
florins  advanced  by  Ricciardo  degli  Alberti  to  Pope  John.  The  friend- 
ship of  Piero  degli  Alberti  contracted  with  Filippo  Maria  Visconti  and 
King  Ladislaus  of  Naples  is  described  in  the  autobiographical  discourse 
introduced  at  pp.  386-399.  This  episode  is  very  precious  for  explaining 
the  relation  between  Italian  princes  and  the  merchants  who  resided  at 
their  courts.  Their  servant  Buto,  p.  375,  should  not  be  omitted  from  the 
picture;  nor  should  the  autobiographical  narrative  given  by  Giannozzo  of 
his  relation  to  his  wife  (pp.  320-328)  be  neglected,  since  this  carries  us  into 
the  very  center  of  a  Florentine  home.  The  moral  tone,  the  political  feel- 
ing, and  the  domestic  habits  of  the  house  in  general  must  be  studied  in 
the  description  of  the  Casa,  Bottega,  and  Villa,  the  discourses  on  educa- 
tion, and  the  discussion  of  public  and  domestic  duties.  The  commercial 
aristocracy  of  Florence  lives  before  us  in  this  Treatise.  We  learn  from 
It  to  know  exactly  what  the  men  who  sustained  the  liberties  of  Italy  against 
the  tyrants  of  Milan  thought  and  felt,  at  a  period  of  history  when  the  old 
fabric  of  medieval  ideas  had  broken  down,  but  when  the  new  Italy  of  the 
Renaissance  had  not  yet  been  fully  formed.  If,  in  addition  to  tne  Trat- 
tato  della  Famiglia,  the  letters  addressed  by  Alessandra  Macinghi  degli 
Strozzi  to  her  children  in  exile  be  included  in  such  a  study,  a  vivid  picture 


ANALYSIS    OF    THE    TREATISE.  191 

duties  of  the  elder  to  the  younger  members  of  the 
household,  and  the  observance  owed  by  sons  and 
daughters  to  their  parents.  It  is  an  essay  De  Officiis 
within  the  circle  of  the  home,  embracing  minute  par- 
ticulars of  conduct,  and  suggesting  rules  for  education 
from  the  cradle  upwards.1  The  second  book  takes  up 
the  question  of  matrimony.  The  respective  ages  at 
which  the  sexes  ought  to  marry,  the  moral  and 
physical  qualities  of  a  good  wife,  the  maintenance  of 
harmony  between  a  wedded  couple,  their  separate 
provinces  and  common  duty  to  the  State  in  the  pro- 
creation of  children,  are  discussed  with  scientific  com- 
pleteness. The  third  book,  modeled  on  the  (Econo- 
micus  of  Xenophon,  is  devoted  to  thrift.  How  to  use 
our  personal  faculties,  our  wealth,  and  our  time  to  best 
advantage,  forms  its  principal  theme.  The  fourth 
book  treats  of  friendship — family  connections  and 
alliances,  the  usefulness  of  friends  in  good  and  evil 
fortune,  the  mutual  benefits  enjoyed  by  men  who  live 
honestly  together  in  a  social  state.2  It  may  be  seen 

might  be  formed  ol  the  domestic  life  ot  a  Florentine  family.*  These 
letters  were  written  from  Florence  to  sons  of  the  Casa  Strozzi  at  Na- 
ples, Bruges,  and  elsewhere  between  the  years  1447  and  1465.  They 
contain  minute  information  about  expenditure,  taxation,  dress,  marriages, 
friendships,  and  all  the  public  and  personal  relations  of  a  noble  Floren- 
tine family.  Much,  moreover,  can  be  gathered  from  them  concerning 
the  footing  of  the  members  of  the  circle  in  exile.  The  private  ricordi 
of  heads  of  families,  portions  of  which  have  been  already  published 
from  the  archives  of  the  Medici  and  Strozzi,  if  more  fully  investigated, 
would  complete  this  interesting  picture  in  many  of  its  important 
details. 

1  Notice  the  discussion  of  wet-nurses,  the  physical  and  mon.,1  evils 
likely  to  ensue  from  an  improper  choice  of  the  nurse  (op.  rit.  ii.  52- 
56). 

*  These  topics  ol  Amicixia,  as  the  virtue  on  which  society  is  based, 

•  Lettere  di  una  GentildannckfortHtiHa,  Firenze,  Sansoni,  1877 


19*  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

from  this  sketch  that  the  architecture  of  the  treatise  is 
complete  and  symmetrical.  The  first  book  establishes 
the  principles  of  domestic  morality  on  which  a  family 
exists  and  flourishes.  The  second  provides  for  its 
propagation  through  marriage.  The  third  shows  how 
its  resources  are  to  be  distributed  and  preserved.  The 
fourth  explains  its  relations  to  similar  communities 
existing  in  an  organized  society.  Many  passages  in 
the  essay  have  undoubtedly  the  air  of  truisms;  but 
this  impression  of  commonplaceness  is  removed  by 
the  strong  specific  character  of  all  the  illustrations. 
Alberti's  wisdom  is  common  to  civilized  humanity. 
His  conception  of  life  is  such  as  only  suits  a  Floren- 
tine, and  his  examples  are  drawn  from  the  annals  of  a 
single  family. 

I  have  already  dwelt  at  some  length  in  a  former 
volume  on  the  most  celebrated  section  of  this  treatise 
— the  Padre  di  Famiglia  or  the  Economical  To 
repeat  those  observations  here  would  be  superfluous. 
Yet  I  cannot  avoid  a  digression  upon  a  matter  of 
much  obscurity  relating  to  the  authorship  of  that 
book.2  Until  recently,  this  discourse  upon  the 
economy  of  a  Florentine  household  passed  under  the 
name  of  Agnolo  Pandolfini,  and  was  published  sepa- 
rately as  his  undoubted  work.  The  interlocutors  in 
the  dialogue,  which  bore  the  title  of  Governo  della 

are  further  discussed  in  a  separate  little  dialogue,  La  Cena  di  Famiglia 
(op.  cit.  vol.  i.). 

1  Age  of  the  Despots,  pp.  239-243. 

*  In  stating  the  question,  and  in  all  that  concerns  the  MS.  authorit 
apon  which  a  judgment  must  be  formed,  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  the 
kindness  of  Signor  Virginio  Cortesi,  who  has  placed  at  my  disposal  his 
unpublished  Essay  on  the  Governo  della  Famiglia  di  Agnolo  Pandol* 
fini.  As  the  title  of  his  work  shows,  he  is  a  believer  in  Pandolfini's 
authorship. 


PANDOLFIN1   AND   ALBERTI.  193 

Famiglia,  are  various  members  of  the  Pandolfini 
family,  and  all  allusions  to  the  Alberti  and  their  exile 
are  wanting.  The  style  of  the  Governo  differs  in 
many  important  respects  from  that  of  Alberti;  and 
yet  the  arrangement  of  the  material  and  the  substance 
of  each  paragraph  are  so  closely  similar  in  both  forms 
of  the  treatise  as  to  prove  that  the  work  is  substan- 
tially identical.  Pandolfini's  essay,  which  I  shall  call 
H  Governo,  passes  for  one  of  the  choicest  monuments 
of  ancient  Tuscan  diction.  Alberti's  Economico,  though 
it  is  more  idiomatic  than  the  rest  of  his  Famigliat 
betrays  the  Latinisms  of  a  scholar.  It  is  clear  from  a 
comparison  of  the  two  treatises  either  that  Alberti 
appropriated  Pandolfini's  Governo,  brought  its  style 
into  harmony  with  his  own,  and  gave  it  a  place  be- 
tween the  second  and  the  fourth  books  of  his  essay  on 
the  Family;  or  else  that  this  third  book  of  Alberti's 
Famiglia  was  rewritten  by  an  author  who  commanded 
a  purer  Italian.  In  the  former  case,  Alberti  changed 
the  dramatis  persona  by  substituting  members  of  his 
own  house  for  the  Pandolfini.  In  the  latter  case,  the 
anonymous  compiler  paid  a  similar  compliment  to  the 
Pandolfini  by  such  alterations  as  obliterated  the 
Alberti,  and  presented  the  treatise  to  the  world  as 
part  of  their  own  history.  That  Agnolo  Pandolfini 
was  himself  guilty  of  this  plagiarism  is  rendered  im- 
probable by  a  variety  of  circumstances.  Yet  the  prob- 
lem does  not  resolve  itself  into  the  simple  question 
whether  Pandolfini  or  Alberti  was  the  plagiary.  Sup- 
posing Alberti  to  have  been  the  original  author,  there 
is  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  the  Governo  was  a 
redaction  made  from  his  work  by  some  anonymous 


194  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

hand  in  honor  of  the  Pandolfini  family.  On  the 
contrary,  if  we  assume  Agnolo  Pandolfini  to  have 
been  the  author,  then  Alberti  himself  was  guilty  of  o 
gross  and  open  plagiarism.1 

It  will  be  useful  to  give  some  account  of  the  MSS. 
upon  which  the  editions  of  the  Governo  and  the 
Ecojwmico  are  based.2  In  the  first  edition  of  the 
G&uerno  (Tartini  e  Franchi,  Firenze,  1734)  six  cod- 
ices are  mentioned.  Of  these  the  Codex  Pandolfini 
A,  on  which  the  editors  chiefly  relied,  has  been  re- 
moved from  Italy  to  Paris.  The  Codex  Pandolfini  B 
was  written  in  1476  at  Poggibonsi  by  a  certain 
Giuliano  di  Niccolajo  Martini.  Whether  the  Ccdex 
Pandolfini  A  professed  to  be  an  autograph  copy,  I  do 
not  know;  but  the  editors  of  1734,  referring  to  it, 
state  that  the  Senator  Filippo  Pandolfini,  member  of 
the  Delia  Crusca,  corrected  the  errors,  restored  the 
text,  and  improved  the  diction  of  the  treatise  by  the 
help  of  a  still  more  ancient  MS.  This  admission  on 
their  part  is  significant.  It  opens,  for  the  advocates  of 
Alberti's  authorship,  innumerable  suspicions  as  to  the 
part  played  by  Filippo  Pandolfini  in  the  preparation  of 

the  Governo.     Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  lack  of  an 
\ 

1  I  use  this  word  according  to  its  present  connotation.     But  such 

literary  plagiarism  was  both  more  common  and  less  disgraceful  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  Alberti  himself  incorporated  passages  of  the  Fiam- 
metta  in  his  Deifira,  and  Jacopo  Nardi  in  his  Storia  Fiorentina  appro- 
priated the  whole  of  Buonaccorsi's  Diaries  (1498-1512)  with  slight  alter- 
ations and  a  singularly  brief  allusion  to  their  author. 

*  Such  information,  as  will  be  seen,  is  both  vague  and  meager.  The 
MSS.  of  the  Governo  in  particular  do  not  seem  to  have  been  accurately 
investigated,  and  are  insufficiently  described  even  by  Cortesi.  Yet  this 
problem,  like  that  of  the  Malespini  and  Compagni  Chronicles,  can- 
not be  set  at  rest  without  a  detailed  comparison  of  all  existing 
codices. 


MANUSCRIPT  AUTHORITIES.  195 

autograph  of  the  Governo  renders  the  settlement  of 
the  disputed  question  very  difficult. 

Of  Alberti's  Trattato  della  Famiglia  we  have  three 
autograph  copies;  (i)  Cod.  Magi.  Classe  iv.  No.  38 
in  folio;  (ii)  Riccardiana  1220;  (iii)  Riccardiana  176 
The  first  of  these  is  the  most  important;  but  it  pre- 
sents some  points  of  singularity.  In  the  first  place, 
the  third  book,  which  is  the  Economico,  has  been  in- 
serted into  the  original  codex,  and  shows  a  different 
style  of  writing.  In  the  second  place,  the  first  two 
books  contain  numerous  corrections,  additions,  era- 
sures and  recorrections,  obviously  made  by  Albert! 
himself.  Some  of  the  interpolated  passages  in  the 
first  two  books  are  found  to  coincide  with  parts  of  the 
Governo;  and  Signer  Cortesi,  to  whose  critical  Study 
I  have  already  referred,  argues  with  great  show  of 
reason  that  Alberti,  when  he  determined  to  incorporate 
the  Governo  in  his  Famiglia,  enriched  the  earlier 
books  of  that  essay  with  fragments  which  he  did  not 
find  it  convenient  to  leave  in  their  original  place. 
Still  it  should  be  remembered  that  this  argument  can 
be  reversed;  for  the  anonymous  compiler  of  the 
Governo ',  if  he  had  access  to  Alberti's  autograph,  may 
have  chosen  to  appropriate  sentences  culled  from  the 
earlier  portions  of  the  Famiglia. 

It  is  noticeable  that  the  Economico,  even  though  it 
forms  the  third  book  of  the  Treatise  on  the  Family, 
has  a  separate  title  and  a  separate  introduction,  with 
a  dedication  to  Francesco  Alberti,  and  a  distinct  per- 
oration.1 It  is,  in  fact,  an  independent  composition, 

1  The  anonymous  biographer  expressly  states  that  the  fourth  book 
was  written  later  than  the  other  three,  and  dedicated  to  the  one  Albert] 


196  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

and  occurs  in  more  than  one  MS.  of  the  fifteenth 
century  detached  from  the  rest  of  the  Famiglia.  In 
style  it  is  far  freer  and  more  racy  than  is  usual  with 
Alberti's  writing.  Of  this  its  author  seems  to  have 
been  aware;  for  he  expressly  tells  his  friend  and  kins- 
man Francesco  that  he  has  sought  to  approach  the 
purity  and  simplicity  of  Xenophon.1 

The  anonymous  writer  of  Alberti's  life  says  that  he 
composed  three  books  on  the  Family  at  Rome  before 
he  was  thirty,  and  a  fourth  book  three  years  later.  If 
we  follow  Tiraboschi  in  taking  1414  for  the  date  of  his 
birth,  the  first  three  books  must  have  been  composed 
before  1444  and  the  fourth  in  1447.  The  former  of 
these  dates  (1444)  receives  some  confirmation  from  a 
Latin  letter  written  by  Leonardo  Dati  to  Alberti,  ac- 
knowledging the  Treatise  on  the  Family,  in  June  1443. 
Dati  tells  him  that  he  finds  fault  with  the  essay  for 
being  composed  "  in  a  more  majestic  and  perhaps  a 
harsher  style,  especially  in  the  first  book,  than  the 
Florentine  language  and  the  judgment  of  the  laity 
would  tolerate."  He  goes  on,  however,  to  observe 
that  "  afterwards  the  language  becomes  far  more  sweet 
and  satisfactory  to  the  ear " — a  criticism  which  seems 
to  suit  the  altered  manner  of  the  third  book.  With 

who  took  any  interest  in  the  previous  portion  of  the  work.  This,  together 
with  the  isolation  and  more  perfect  diction  of  Book  iii.  is  strong  presump- 
tion in  favor  of  its  having  been  an  afterthought. 

'  The  (Economicus  of  Xenophon  served  as  common  material  for  the 
Economico  and  the  Governo,  whatever  we  may  think  about  the  author- 
ship of  these  two  essays.  Many  parallel  passages  in  Palmieri's  Vita  Ci- 
vile can  be  referred  to  the  same  source.  To  what  extent  Alberti  knew 
Greek  is  not  ascertained;  but  even  in  the  bad  Latin  translations  of  that 
age  a  flavor  so  peculiar  as  that  of  Xenophon's  style  could  not  have  es- 
caped bis  fine  sense. 


THE    THIRD    BOOK   OF    THE    FAM1GLJA.  197 

reference  to  the  date  1447,  in  which  the  Famiglia  may 
have  been  completed,  Cortesi  remarks  that  Pandolfini 
died  in  1446.  He  suggests  that,  upon  this  event, 
Alberti  appropriated  the  Governo  and  rewrote  it,  and 
that  the  Economico,  though  it  holds  the  place  of  the 
third  book  in  the  treatise,  is  really  the  fourth  book 
mentioned  by  the  anonymous  biographer.  The  sugges- 
tion is  ingenious;  and  if  we  can  once  bring  ourselves 
to  believe  that  Alberti  committed  a  deliberate  act  of 
larceny,  immediately  after  his  friend  Pandolfini's  death, 
then  the  details  which  have  been  already  given  con- 
cerning the  autograph  of  the  Famiglia  and  the  discre- 
pancies in  its  style  of  composition  add  confirmation  to 
the  theory.  There  are,  however,  good  reasons  for 
assigning  Alberti's  birth  to  the  year  1404  or  even 
I4O2.1  In  that  case  Alberti's  Roman  residence  would 
fall  into  the  third  decade  of  the  century,  and  the  last 
book  of  the  Famiglia  (which  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
is  the  one  now  called  the  third)  would  have  been 
composed  before  Pandolfini's  death.  That  Alberti 
kept  his  MSS.  upon  the  stocks  and  subjected  them  to 
frequent  revision  is  certain;  and  this  may  account  for 
one  reference  occurring  in  it  to  an  event  which  hap 
pened  in  1438. 

Is  it  rational  to  adopt  the  hypothesis  of  Alberti's 
plagiarism  ?  Let  us  distinctly  understand  what  it  im- 
plies. In  his  own  preface  to  the  Economico  Alberti 
states  that  he  has  striven  to  reproduce  the  simple 
and  intelligible  style  of  Xenophon 2 ;  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  this  portion  of  the  Famiglia,  whether  we 
regard  it  as  Alberti's  or  as  Pandolfini's  property, 
1  See  Op.  Volg.  vol.  i.  pp.  Ixxxvi.-lxxxviii.  *  Op.  Volg.  ii.  p.  223. 


198  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

was  closely  modeled  on  the  CEconomicus.  Cortesi 
suggests  that  the  reference  to  Xenophon  was  pur- 
posely introduced  by  Albert!  in  order  to  put  his 
readers  off  the  scent.  Nor,  if  we  accept  the  hypo- 
thesis of  plagiarism,  can  we  restrict  ourselves  to  this 
accusation  merely.  In  the  essay  Delia  Tranquillity 
deW  Animo  Alberti  introduces  Agnolo  Pandolfini  as 
an  interlocutor,  and  makes  him  refer  to  the  third  book 
of  the  Famiglia  as  a  genuine  production  of  Alberti.1 
In  other  words,  he  must  not  only  have  appropriated 
Pandolfini's  work,  and  laid  claim  to  it  in  the  preface  to 
his  Economico;  but  he  must  also  have  referred  to  it  as 
his  own  composition  in  a  speech  ascribed  to  the  real 
author,  which  he  meant  for  publication.  That  is  to 
say,  he  made  the  man  whose  work  he  stole  pronounce 
its  panegyric  and  refer  it  to  the  thief.  That  Pandol- 
fini was  dead  when  he  committed  these  acts  of  treason 
would  not  be  sufficient  to  explain  Alberti's  audacity; 
for  according  to  the  advocates  of  Pandolfini's  author- 
ship, the  MS.  formed  a  known  and  valued  portion  of 
his  sons'  inheritance.  Is  it  prima  facie  probable  that 
Alberti,  even  in  those  days  of  looser  literary  copyright 
than  ours,  should  have  exposed  himself  to  detection  in 
so  palpable  and  gross  a  fraud  ? 

Before  answering  this  question  in  the  affirmative, 
it  may  be  asked  what  positive  grounds  there  are  for 
crediting  Pandolfini  with  the  original  authorship.  At 
present  no  autograph  of  Pandolfini  is  forthcoming. 
His  claim  to  authorship  rests  on  tradition,  and  on  the 
Pandolfini  cast  of  the  dialogue  in  certain  MSS.  At 
the  same  time,  the  admissions  made  by  the  editors 
1  Op.  Volg.  i.  10. 


WAS   ALBERT!  A    PLAGIARIST f  199 

of  1734  regarding  their  most  trusted  codex  have  been 
already  shown  to  be  suspicious.  It  is  also  noticeable 
that  Vespasiano,  in  his  Life  of  Agnolo  Pandolfini, 
though  he  professes  to  have  been  intimately  acquainted 
with  this  excellent  Florentine  burgher,  does  not  men- 
tion the  Governo  delta  Famiglia^  The  omission  is 
singular,  supposing  the  treatise  to  have  then  existed 
under  Pandolfini's  name,  for  Vespasiano  was  himself 
a  writer  of  Italian  in  an  age  when  Latin  scholarship 
claimed  almost  exclusive  attention.  He  would,  we 
should  have  thought,  have  been  eager  to  name  so 
distinguished  a  man  among  his  fellow-authors  in  the 
vulgar  tongue. 

Granting  the  force  of  these  considerations,  it  must 
still  be  admitted  that  there  remain  grave  objections  to 
accepting  the  Economico  of  Alberti  as  the  original  of 
these  two  treatises.  In  the  first  place,  the  Governo  is 
a  masterpiece  of  Tuscan;  and  it  is  far  more  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  the  Economico  was  copied  from  the 
Governo  with  such  alterations  as  adapted  it  to  the 
manner  of  the  Famiglia,  than  to  assume  that  the 
Economico  received  a  literary  rehandling  which  re- 
duced it  from  its  more  rhetorical  to  a  popular  form. 
The  passage  from  simple  to  complex  in  literature 
admits  of  easier  explanation  than  the  reverse  process. 
Moreover,  if  Alberti  admired  a  racy  Tuscan  style  and 
could  command  it  for  the  Economico,  why  did  he  not 
continue  to  use  it  in  his  subsequent  compositions  ?  In 
the  second  place,  the  Governo,  as  it  stands,  is  suited  to 

1  It  should,  however,  be  added  that  Vespasiano  alludes  to  Pandolfi- 
ni's habits  of  study  and  composition  after  his  retirement  to  Signa.  Yet 
he  does  not  cite  the  Governo. 


ZOO  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

what  Vespasiano  tells  us  about  Agnolo  Pandolfini 
He  was  a  scholar  trained  in  the  humanities  of  the 
earlier  Renaissance  and  a  statesman  who  retired  from 
public  life,  disgusted  with  the  times,  to  studious  leisure 
at  his  villa.  Now,  Giannozzo  Alberti,  who  takes  the 
chief  part  in  the  Economico^  proclaims  himself  a  man 
of  business,  without  learning.  Those  passages  of  the 
Governo  which  seem  inappropriate  to  such  a  character 
are  absent  from  the  Economico;  but  some  of  them 
appear  in  Alberti's  other  works,  the  Teogenio  and 
Delia  Tranquillity.  From  this  circumstance  Signor 
Cortesi  infers  that  Alberti,  working  with  Pandolfini's 
essay  before  him,  made  such  alterations  as  brought  the 
drift  of  the  discourse  within  the  scope  of  Giannozzo's 
acquirements.  The  advocates  of  Alberti's  authorship 
are  bound  to  reverse  this  theory,  and  to  assume  that 
the  author  of  the  Governo  suited  the  Economico  ta 
Pandolfini  by  infusing  a  tincture  of  scholarship  into 
Giannozzo's  speeches.1 

We  have  still  to  ask  who  could  the  author  of 
the  Governo >,  if  it  was  not  Agnolo  Pandolfini,  have 
been  ?  The  first  answer  to  this  question  is:  Alberti 
himself.  The  anonymous  biographer  tells  us  that  he 
wrote  the  first  three  books  at  Rome,  and  that  he  after- 
wards made  great  efforts  to  improve  his  Tuscan  style 
and  render  it  more  popular.  It  is  not,  therefore,  im- 
possible that  he  should  himself  have  fitted  that  portion 
of  his  Famiglia  with  new  characters,  omitted  the 

1  It  is  clear  that  all  this  reasoning  upon  internal  evidence  can  be 
turned  to  the  advantage  of  both  sides  in  the  dispute.  The  question  will 
have  finally  to  be  settled  on  external  grounds  (comparison  of  MSS.),  com- 
bined with  a  wise  use  of  such  arguments  from  style  as  have  already 
been  cited. 


THEORY    OF   RIFACIMENTO.  2OI 

Alberti,  and  given  the  honors  of  the  dialogue  to 
Pandolfini.  The  treatise,  as  he  first  planned  it  (accord- 
ing to  this  hypothesis),  has  a  passionate  digression 
upon  the  exile  of  the  Alberti,  followed  by  a  decla- 
mation against  public  life  and  politicians.  To  have 
circulated  these  passages  in  an  essay  intended  for 
Florentine  readers,  after  Alberti's  recall  by  Cosimo  de' 
Medici,  would  have  been  unwise.  Alberti,  therefore, 
may  only  have  retained  such  portions  of  them  as  could 
rouse  no  animosity,  revive  no  painful  reminiscences, 
and  be  appropriately  placed  upon  the  lips  of  Pan- 
dolfini. As  it  stands  in  the  Governo,  the  invective 
against  statecraft  is  scarcely  in  keeping  with  Pan- 
dolfini's  character.  Though  he  retired  from  public 
life  disgusted  and  ill  at  ease,  the  conclusion  that  no 
man  should  seek  to  serve  the  State  except  from  a 
strict  sense  of  duty,  sounds  strange  when  spoken  by 
this  veteran  politician.  Taken  as  the  climax  to  the 
history  of  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  the  Alberti,  this 
passage  is  dramatically  in  harmony  with  Giannozzo's 
experience.1  With  regard  to  the  noticeable  improve- 
ment of  style  in  the  Economico,  we  might  argue  that 
after  Alberti  had  enjoyed  facilities  at  Florence  of 
acquiring  his  native  idiom,  he  remodeled  that  section 
of  his  earlier  work  which  he  intended  for  the  people. 
And  the  same  line  of  argument  would  account  for  the 
independence  of  the  Ecotwmico  and  its  occurrence  in 
separate  MSS.  Had  Alberti  designed  what  we  now 

1  Anyhow,  and  whatever  may  have  been  the  source  of  Alberti's 
Economico,  the  whole  scene  describing  exile  and  winding  up  with  the 
tirade  against  a  political  career,  is  a  very  noble  piece  of  writing.  If 
space  sufficed,  it  might  be  quoted  as  the  finest  specimen  of  Alberti's 
eloquence.  See  Op.  Volg.  v.  pp.  256-266. 


202  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

call  a  plagiarism,  what  need  was  there  to  call  attention 
to  it  by  prefixing  an  introduction  to  the  third  book  of 
a  continuous  treatise? 

It  is  not,  however,  necessary  to  defend  Alberti 
from  the  charge  of  fraud  by  suggesting  that  he  was 
himself  the  author  of  the  Governo.  There  existed,  as 
we  shall  soon  see,  a  class  of  semi-cultivated  scribes  at 
Florence,  whose  business  consisted  in  manufacturing 
literature  for  the  people.  They  re-wrote,  re-fashioned, 
condensed,  abstracted  whatever  seemed  to  furnish 
entertainment  and  instruction  for  their  public.  Their 
style  was  close  to  the  vulgar  speech  and  frankly 
idiomatic.  That  one  of  these  men  should  have  made 
the  necessary  alterations  in  the  third  book  of  the 
Famiglia  to  remove  the  recollection  of  the  Alberti 
exile,  and  to  prepare  it  for  popular  reading,  is  by  no 
means  impossible.  The  Governo  is  shorter  and  more 
condensed  than  the  Economico.  The  rhetorical  and 
dramatic  elements  are  reduced;  and  the  material  is 
communicated  in  a  style  of  gnomic  pregnancy.  If  it 
was  modeled  upon  the  Economico  in  the  way  I  have 
suggested,  the  writer  of  the  abstract  was  a  man  of  no 
common  ability,  with  a  very  keen  sense  of  language 
and  a  faculty  for  investing  a  work  of  art  and  fine 
literature  with  the  naivete  and  grace  of  popular  style. 
He  also  understood  the  necessity  of  providing  his 
chief  interlocutor,  Agnolo  Pandolfini,  with  a  character 
different  from  that  of  Giannozzo  Alberti ;  and  he  had 
the  tact  to  realize  that  character  by  innumerable 
touches.  Great  additional  support  would  be  given  to 
this  hypothesis,  if  we  could  trust  Bonucci's  assertion 
that  he  had  seen  and  transcribed  a  MS.  of  the  Governo 


MINOR  MORAL    ESSAYS.  IQ\ 

adapted  with  a  set  of  characters  selected  from  the 
Pazzi  family.  It  would  then  seem  clear  that  the 
Governo  was  an  essay  which  every  father  of  a  family 
wished  to  possess  for  the  instruction  of  his  household, 
and  to  connect  with  the  past  history  of  his  own  race. 
Unluckily,  Signer  Bonucci,  though  he  prints  this  Pazzi 
rifacimento,  gives  no  information  as  to  the  source  of 
the  MS.  or  any  hint  whereby  its  existence  can  be 
ascertained.1  We  must,  therefore,  omit  it  from  our 
reckoning. 

As  the  case  at  present  stands,  it  is  impossible  to 
form  a  decisive  opinion  regarding  the  authorship  of  this 
famous  treatise.  The  necessary  critical  examination  of 
MSS.  has  not  yet  been  made,  and  the  arguments  used 
on  either  side  from  internal  evidence  are  not  con- 
clusive. My  own  prepossession  is  still  in  favor  of 
Alberti.  I  may,  however,  observe  that  after  reading 
Signer  Cortesi's  inedited  essay,  I  perceive  the  case  in 
favor  of  Pandolfini  to  be  far  stronger  than  I  had 
expected.2 

Space  will  not  permit  a  full  discussion  of  Alberti 's 
numerous  writings;  and  yet  their  bearing  on  the  best 
opinion  of  his  time  is  so  important  that  some  notice  of 
them  must  be  taken.  Together  with  the  Famiglia  we 
may  class  the  Deiciarchia,  or,  as  it  should  probably  be 
written,  the  De  Iciarchia. 3  This,  like  the  majority  of 
his  moral  treatises,  is  a  dialogue,  and  its  subject  is  civic 

»  See  Op.  Volg.  Preface  to  vol.  v. 

*  It  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that  Signor  Cortesi  should  print  this 
Studio  Critico,  and,  if  possible,  append  to  it  an  account  of  the  MSS.  on 
which  Pandolfini's  claims  to  be  considered  the  original  author  rest. 

s  Op.  Volg.  vol.  iii.  The  meaning  of  the  title  appears  on  p.  132, 
wnere  the  word  Iciarco  is  defined  Supremo  uomo  e  primario  principt 
della  famiglia  wo.  It  is  a  compound  of  otVo?  and 


204 


RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 


virtue.  Having  formed  the  ideal  family,  he  next  con- 
siders the  functions  of  householders,  born  to  guide  the 
State.  The  chief  point  of  the  discourse  is  that  no  one 
should  be  idle,  but  that  all  should  labor  in  some 
calling  worthy  of  the  dignity  of  man.1  This  seems  a 
simple  doctrine;  but  it  is  so  inculcated  as  to  make  us 
remember  the  Guelf  laws  of  Florence,  whereby  scio- 
perati  were  declared  criminals.  It  must  not,  however, 
be  supposed  that  Alberti  confines  himself  to  th' 
development  of  this  single  theme.  His  Deiciarchi^ 
is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  a  treatise  on  the  persona! 
qualities  of  men  to  whom  the  conduct  of  a  common- 
wealth has  been  by  accident  of  birth  intrusted. 

A  second  class  of  Alberti's  dialogues  discuss  the 
contemplative  life.  In  the  Famiglia  and  the  Deici- 
arc/iia  man  is  regarded  as  a  social  and  domestic  being 
In  the  Tranquillity  delV  Animo  and  the  Teogenio  the 
inner  life  of  the  student  and  the  sage  comes  under 
treatment.  The  former  of  these  dialogues  owes  much 
of  its  interest  to  the  interlocutors  and  to  the  scene 
where  it  was  laid.2  Leon  Battista  Alberti,  Niccol6  di 
Veri  dei  Medici,  and  Agnolo  Pandolfini  meet  inside 
the  Florentine  Duomo,  which  is  described  in  a  few 
words  of  earnest  admiration  for  its  majesty  and 
strength.3  These  friends  begin  a  conversation,  which 
soon  turns  upon  the  means  of  preserving  the  mind  in 
repose  and  avoiding  perturbations  from  the  passions 

1  See  pp.  24,  28,  88,  and  the  fine  humanistic  passage  on  p.  47,  which 
reads  like  an  expansion  of  Dante's  Fatti  non  fo ste  per  -viver  come  brut. 
in  Ulysses'  speech  to  his  comrades. 

*  Op.  Volg.  vol.  i. 

*  He  calls  it  il  nostro  lempio  massimo  and  speaks  of  il  culto  divin 
pp.  7-9- 


THE    TEOGENIO.  205 

The  three  books  are  enriched  with  copious  allusions  to 
Alberti's  works  and  personal  habits — his  skill  as  a 
musician  and  a  statuary,  the  gymnastic  feats  of  his 
ycuth,  and  his  efforts  to  benefit  the  State  by  intellec- 
tual labor.  They  form  a  valuable  supplement  to  the 
anonymous  biography.  The  philosophical  material  is 
too  immediately  borrowed  from  Cicero  and  Seneca  to  be 
of  much  importance.  The  Teogenio  is  a  more  attrac- 
tive, and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  riper  work.1  Of 
Alberti's  ethical  discourses  I  am  inclined  to  rate  this 
next  to  the  Famiglia;  nor  did  the  Italian  Renaissance 
produce  any  disquisition  of  the  kind  more  elevated  in 
feeling,  finer  in  temper,  or  glowing  with  an  eloquence 
at  once  so  spontaneous  and  so  dignified.  We  have 
to  return  to  Petrarch  to  find  the  same  high  humanistic 
passion;  and  Alberti's  Italian  is  here  more  winning  than 
Petrarch's  Latin.  Had  Pico  condescended  to  the 
vulgar  tongue,  he  might  have  produced  work  of  similar 
quality;  for  the  essay  on  the  Dignity  of  Man  is  written 
in  the  same  spirit. 

The  Teogenio  was  sent  with  a  letter  of  dedication 
to  Lionelle  d'  Este  not  long  after  his  father's  death.2 
Alberti  apologizes  for  its  Italian  style  and  assures  the 
prince  it  had  been  written  merely  to  console  him  in  his 
evil  fortunes.  The  speakers  are  two,  Teogenio  and 
Microtiro.3  The  dialogue  opens  with  a  passage  on 

•  Op.  Volg.  vol.  iii. 

»  Ibid.  p.  160.  This  enables  us  to  fix  the  date  within  certain  limits. 
Niccolb  III.  of  Este  died  1441.  Lionello  died  1450.  Alberti  speaks  of 
the  essay  as  having  been  already  some  time  in  circulation.  It  must 
therefore  have  been  written  before  1440. 

»  Like  Boccaccio,  Alberti  is  fond  of  bad  Greek  etymologies.  Per- 
haps we  may  translate  these  names,  "  the  God-born  "  and  "  the  little  pu- 
pil." In  the  same  dialogue  Tichipedio  seems  to  be  "  ^he  youth  of  fortune.' 


206  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

friendship,  and  a  somewhat  labored  description  of 
the  grove  where  Teogenio  intends  to  pass  the  day. 
Microtiro  has  come  from  the  city.  His  friend,  the 
recluse,  welcomes  him  to  the  country  with  these 
words:  "Ma  sediamo,  se  cosl  ti  piace,  qui  fra  quest i 
mirti,  in  luogo  non  men  delizioso  che  vostri  teatri  e 
tempi  amplissimi  e  sontuosissimi."  This  strikes  the 
keynote  of  the  treatise,  the  theme  of  which  is  the 
superiority  of  study  in  the  country  over  the  distrac- 
tions of  the  town.  Reading  it,  we  see  how  rightly 
Landino  assigned  his  part  to  Albert!  in  the  Camaldo- 
lese  Discussions.1  That  ideal  of  rural  solitude  which 
the  Italian  scholars  inherited  from  their  Roman  fore- 
fathers, receives  its  earliest  and  finest  treatment  in  this 
dialogue.  It  is  not  communion  with  nature  so  much 
as  the  companionship  of  books  and  the  pursuit  of 
study  in  a  tranquil  corner  of  the  Tuscan  hills,  that 
Alberti  has  selected  for  his  panegyric.2  "The  society 
of  the  illustrious  dead,"  he  says  in  one  of  the  noblest 
passages  of  the  essay,  "  can  be  enjoyed  by  me  at  leisure 
here;  and  when  I  choose  to  converse  with  sages, 
politicians  or  great  poets,  I  have  but  to  turn  to  my 
bookshelves,  and  my  company  is  better  than  your 
palaces  with  all  their  crowds  of  flatterers  and  clients 
can  afford."3  After  enlarging  on  the  manifold  advan- 
tages of  a  student's  life,  he  concludes  the  book  with  a 
magnificent  picture  of  human  frailty,  leading  up  to  a 
discourse  on  death. 

It    is    noticeable    that    Alberti,   though    frequently 
approaching  the  subject  of  religion,  never  dilates  upon 

>  See  Revival  of  Learning,  p.  339. 

2  Op.  Volg.  iii.  179.  »  Ibid.  p.  186. 


TREATISES   ON  ART.  2<yj 

it,  and  in  no  place  declares  himself  a  Christian.  His 
creed  is  that  of  the  Roman  moralists — a  belief  in  the 
benignant  Maker  of  the  Universe,  an  intellectual  and 
unsubstantial  theism.  We  feel  this  even  in  that 
passage  of  the  Fami^lia  when  Giannozzo  and  his 
wife  pray  in  their  bed-chamber  to  God  for  prosperity 
in  life  and  happiness  in  children.1  There  is  not  a 
word  about  spiritual  blessings,  no  allusion  to  Christ  or 
Madonna,  though  a  silver  statue  of  the  Saint  with 
ivory  hands  and  face  is  standing  in  his  tabernacle  over 
them2 — nothing,  indeed,  to  indicate  that  this  grave 
Florentine  couple,  whom  we  may  figure  to  ourselves 
like  Van  Dyck's  merchant  and  wife  in  the  National 
Gallery,  were  not  performing  sacrifice  and  praying  to 
the  Di  Lares  of  a  Roman  household.  The  Renais- 
sance had  Latinized  even  the  religious  sentiments,  and 
the  elder  faiths  of  the  middle  ages  were  extinct  in  the 
soundest  hearts  of  the  epoch.3 

A  third  group  of  Alberti's  prose  works  consists  of 
his  essays  on  the  arts.4  One  of  these,  the  Treatise  on 
Painting,  was  either  written  in  Italian  or  translated  by 
Alberti  soon  after  its  composition  in  Latin.6  The 
Treatises  on  Perspective,  Sculpture,  Architecture  and 
the  Orders  are  supposed  to  have  been  rendered  by 
their  author  from  the  Latin ;  but  doubt  still  rests  upon 
Alberti's  share  in  this  translation.  It  is  not  my  pre 

1  Op.  Volg.  vol.  ii.  pp.  320-322. 
•  //  Santo.     Probably  S.  John. 

3  Alberti  in  a  Letter  of  Condolement  to  a  friend  (Op.  Volg.  v.  357) 
chooses  examples  from  the  Bible.     Yet  the  tone  of  that  most  strictly 
pious  of  his  writings  is  rather  Theistic  than  Christian. 

4  Op.  Volg.  vol.  iv.     See,  too,  Janitschek's  edition  cited  above. 

6  Bonucci  believes  it  was  composed  in  Italian.    Janitschek  gives  rea- 
sons tor  the  contrary  theory  (op.  cit.  p.  Hi.). 


208  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

sent  business  to  inquire  into  the  subject-matter  of  his 
artistic  essays,  but  rather  to  note  the  fact  that  Alberti 
should  have  thought  it  fitting  to  use  Italian  for  at  least 
the  most  considerable  of  them.  We  have  already 
seen  that  his  chief  motive  to  composition  was  utility, 
and  that  he  recognized  the  need  of  bringing  the  results 
of  learning  within  the  scope  of  the  unlettered  laity. 
We  need  not  doubt  that  this  consideration  weighed 
with  him  when  he  rehandled  the  matter  of  Vitruvius 
and  Pliny  for  the  use  of  handicraftsmen.  Nothing  is 
more  striking  in  the  whole  series  than  the  business- 
like simplicity  of  style,  the  avoidance  of  rhetoric,  and 
the  adaptation  of  each  section  to  some  practical  end. 
We  have  not  here  to  do  with  aesthetical  criticism,  but 
with  the  condensed  experience  of  a  student  and  work- 
man. In  his  exposition  of  theory  Alberti  corresponds 
to  the  practice  of  Florence,  where  Ghirlandajo  kept  a 
bottega  open  to  all  comers,  and  Michelangelo  began 
his  apprenticeship  by  grinding  colors. 

Though  the  subject  of  these  essays  lies  beyond  the 
scope  of  my  work,  it  is  impossible  to  pass  over  the 
dedication  to  Filippo  Brunelleschi,  which  is  prefixed 
to  the  Italian  version  of  the  Pittitra.  Alberti  begins 
by  saying  that  the  wonder  and  sorrow  begotten  in  him 
by  reflecting  on  the  loss  of  many  noble  arts  and 
sciences,  had  led  him  to  believe  that  Nature,  wearied 
and  out-worn,  had  no  force  left  to  generate  the  giant 
spirits  of  her  youth.  "  But  when  I  returned  from  the 
long  exile  in  which  we  of  the  Alberti  have  grown  old, 
to  this  our  mother-city,  which  exceeds  all  others  in  the 
beauty  of  her  monuments,  I  perceived  that  many 
living  men,  but  first  of  all  you,  Filippo,  and  our  dear- 


DISCOURSES    ON  LOVE    AND   MARRIAGE.  209 

est  friend  the  sculptor  Donatello,  and  Lorenzo  Ghiberti 
and  Luca  della  Robbia  and  Masaccio,  were  not  of  less 
account  for  genius  and  noble  work  than  any  ancient 
artist  of  great  fame."  After  some  remarks  upon 
industry  and  the  advantages  of  scientific  theory,  he 
proceeds:  "  Who  is  there  so  hard  and  envious  of 
temper  as  not  to  praise  the  architect  Filippo,  when 
he  saw  so  vast  a  structure,  raised  above  the  heavens, 
spacious  enough  to  cover  with  its  shadow  all  the 
Tuscan  folks,  built  without  any  aid  from  beams  and 
scaffoldings,  a  miracle  of  art,  if  I  judge  rightly,  which 
might  in  this  age  have  been  deemed  impossible,  and 
which  even  among  the  ancients  was  perhaps  unknown, 
undreamed  of?"  After  this  exordium,  he  commits  to 
Brunelleschi's  care  his  little  book  on  painting,  quale  a 
tuo  nome  fed  in  lingua  toscana.  The  interest  of  this 
dedication  lies  not  omy  in  the  mention  of  the  five  chief 
quattrocento  artists  by  Alberti,  and  in  the  record  of  the 
impression  first  produced  on  him  by  Florence,  but  also 
in  the  recognition  that,  great  as  were  the  dead  arts  of 
antiquity,  the  modern  arts  of  Italy  could  rival  them. 
It  is  an  intuition  parallel  to  that  which  induced  Alberti 
to  compose  the  Famiglia  in  Italian,  and  proves  that  he 
could  endure  the  blaze  of  humanism  without  blindness. 
In  the  fourth  group  of  Alberti's  prose-works  we 
come  across  a  new  vein  of  semi-moral,  semi-satirical 
reflection.  These  are  devoted  to  love  and  matrimony, 
giving  rhetorical  expression  to  the  misogynistic  side 
of  the  Novelle.  Alberti  professes  himself  a  master  in 
the  lore  of  love.  He  knows  its  symptoms,  diagnoses 
and  describes  the  stages  of  the  malady,  and  pretends 
to  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  foibles  of  both  sexes, 


»IO  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Yet  we  seem  to  feel  that  his  knowledge  is  rather  liter- 
ary than  real,  derived  from  books  and  pranked  with  a 
scholastic  show  of  borrowed  learning.  Two  lectures, 
addressed  by  women  to  their  own  sex  on  the  art  of 
love,  take  the  first  place  in  this  series.  The  one  is 
called  Ecatomfila,  or  the  lady  of  the  hundred  loves;  the 
other  Amiria,  or  the  lady  of  the  myriad.1  The  former 
tells  her  female  audience  what  kind  of  lover  to  choose, 
neither  too  young  nor  too  old,  not  too  rich  nor  yet 
too  handsome;  how  to  keep  him,  and  in  what  way  to 
make  the  most  of  the  precious  acquisition.  She  is 
comparatively  modest,  and  the  sort  of  passion  she 
implies  may  pass  for  virtuous.  Yet  her  large  experi- 
ence of  men  proves  she  has  arrived  at  wisdom  after 
many  trials.  Her  virtue  is  a  matter  of  prudent  ego- 
ism. Amiria  takes  a  different  line.  Heliogabalus 
might  have  used  her  precepts  in  his  Concio  ad  Mere- 
trices.  Her  discourse  turns  upon  the  subsidiary  aids 
to  beauty  and  the  arts  of  coquetry.  Recipes  for  hair- 
dyes,  depilatories,  eye-lotions,  tooth-powders,  soaps, 
lip-salves,  ointments,  cosmetics,  skin-preservers,  wart- 
destroyers,  pearl-powders,  rouges,  are  followed  up  with 
sound  advice  about  craft,  fraud,  force,  feigned  passion, 
entangling  manoeuvres,  crocodile  tears,  and  secrecy  in 
self-indulgence.  The  sustained  irony  of  this  address, 
and  the  minute  acquaintance  with  the  least  laudable 
secrets  of  an  Italian  lady's  toilet  it  reveals,  place  it 
upon  the  list  of  literary  curiosities.  Did  any  human 
beings  ever  plaster  their  faces  with  such  stuff  as  Amiria 
gravely  recommends  ? 2 

i  Op.  Volg.  vols.  iii.  and  v. 

*  Passages  in  the  plays  of  our  own  dramatists  warn  us  to  be  careful 


SATIRE    ON    WOMEN.  211 

The  Deifira  is  a  dialogue  on  the  cure  of  a  dis- 
tempered passion,  which  adds  but  little  to  Ovid's 
Remedium  Amoris;  while  two  short  treatises  on 
marriage  only  prove  that  Alberti  took  the  old  Simon- 
idean  view  of  there  being  at  least  nine  bad  women 
to  one  good  one.1  His  misogyny,  whether  real  or 
affected,  reaches  its  climax  in  an  epistle  to  Paolo 
Codagnello,  which  combines  the  worst  things  said  by 
Boccaccio  in  the  Corbaccio  with  Lucian's  satire  on  female 
uncleanliness  in  the  Amores?  The  tirade  appears  to 
be  as  serious  as  possible,  and,  indeed,  Alberti's  genera- 
lities might  be  illustrated  ad  libitum  from  the  Novelle, 
It  is  no  wonder  that  women  resented  his  treatment  of 
them;  and  one  of  his  most  amusing  lesser  tracts  is  a 
dialogue  between  himself  and  a  lady  called  Sofrona, 
who  took  him  to  task  for  this  very  epistle.  In  answer 
to  her  reproaches  he  is  ceremoniously  polite.  He 
also  gives  her  the  last  word  in  the  argument,  not 
without  a  stroke  of  humor.  "It  is  all  very  well  of 
you,  men  of  letters,  to  take  our  characters  away,  so 
long  as  we  can  rule  our  husbands  and  make  choice  of 
lovers  when  and  how  we  choose.  All  you  men  run 
after  us;  and  if  you  do  but  see  a  pretty  girl,  you 

how  we  answer  in  the  negative.  But  here  are  some  specimens  of  Amiria's 
recipes  (pp.  tit.  v.  282).  "  Radice  di  cocomeri  spolverizzata,  bollita  in 
orina,  usata  piu  di,  lieva  dal  viso  panni  e  rughe.  Giovavi  sangue  di  tauro 
stillato  a  ogni  macula,  stereo  di  colombe  in  aceto  .  .  .  insieme  a  stereo 
di  cervio  .  .  .  lumache  lunghe  .  .  .  stereo  di  fanciullo  .  .  .  sangue  d' 
anguille."  All  these  things  are  recommended,  upon  one  page,  for  spots 
on  the  skin.  I  can  find  nothing  parallel  in  the  very  curious  toilet  book 
called  Gli  Ornamenti  delle  Dame,  scritti  per  M.  Giov.  Marinelli,  Ve- 
netia,  Valgrisio,  1574. 

i  Op.  Volg.  vol.  iii.  367;  vol.  i.  191,  215. 

«  Op.  Volg  v.  2.33. 


212  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

stand  as  stock  still  as  a  statue."1  After  this  fashion 
runs  Sofrona's  reply. 

Alberti's  misogynistic  essays  remind  us  how  very 
difficult  it  is  to  understand  or  explain  the  tone  of 
popular  literature  in  that  century  with  regard  to 
women.  That  the  Novelle  were  written  to  amuse 
both  sexes  seems  clear;  and  we  must  imagine  that 
the  women  who  read  so  much  vituperation  of  their 
manners,  regarded  it  as  a  conventional  play  with  words. 
Like  Sofrona,  they  knew  their  satirists  to  be  fair 
husbands,  fathers,  brothers,  and,  in  the  capacity  of 
lovers,  ludicrously  blind  to  their  defects.  The  current 
abuse  of  women,  in  which  Petrarch  no  less  than 
Alberti  and  Boccaccio  indulged,  seems  to  have  been  a 
scholastic  survival  of  the  coarse  and  ignorant  literature 
of  the  medieval  clergy.  Cloistered  monks  indulged 
their  taste  for  obscenity,  and  indemnified  themselves 
for  self-imposed  celibacy,  by  grossly  insulting  the  mo- 
thers who  bore  them  and  the  institution  they  adminis- 
tered as  a  sacrament.2  Their  invective  tickled  the 
vulgar  ear,  and  passed  into  popular  literature,  where 
it  held  its  own  as  a  commonplace,  not  credited  with 
too  much  meaning  by  folk  who  knew  the  world. 

The  pretty  story  of  Ippolito  and  Leonora,  could  we 
believe  it  to  be  Alberti's,  might  pass  for  a  palinode 
to  these  misogynistic  treatises.3  It  is  the  tale  of  two 
Florentine  lovers,  born  in  hostile  houses,  and  brought 
after  a  series  of  misadventures,  to  the  fruition  of 

'  Op.  Volg.  \.  236. 

•  I  may  refer  to  the  Latin  song  against  marriage,  Sit  Deo  gloria 
(Du  Me"ril,  Polsies  Populaires  Latines  du  Moyen  Age,  pp.  179-187),  for 
an  epitome  of  clerical  virulence  and  vileness  on  this  topic. 

»  Op,  Volg.  iii.  274. 


ALBERTPS   POEMS.  213 

honorable  love  in  marriage.  The  legend  must  have 
been  very  popular.  Besides  the  prose  version,  in 
which  the  lovers  are  called  Ippolito  de'  Buondclmonti 
and  Leonora  de'  Bardi,  we  have  a  poem  in  ottava 
rima,  where  the  heroine's  name  becomes  Dianora.  A 
Latin  translation  of  the  same  novel  was  produced  by 
Paolo  Cortesi,  with  the  title  Hyppolyti  et  Deyanira 
Historia.  But  since  Alberti's  authorship  has  not 
been  clearly  proved,  it  is  more  prudent  to  class  both 
Italian  versions  among  those  anonymous  products  of 
popular  literature  which  will  form  the  topic  of  my  next 
chapter. 

Of  Alberti's  poems  few  survive;  and  these  have 
no  great  literary  value.  Out  of  the  three  serious  sonnets, 
one  beginning  lo  vidi  gib  seder  deserves  to  be  studied 
for  a  certain  rapidity  of  movement  and  mystery  of 
emotion.1  It  might  be  compared  to  an  allegorical 
engraving  by  some  artist  of  the  sixteenth  century 
— Robeta  or  the  Master  of  the  Caduceus.  Two 
burlesque  sonnets  in  reply  to  Burchiello  have  this 
interest,  that  they  illustrate  a  point  of  literary  contact 
between  the  people  and  the  cultivated  classes.  But, 
on  the  whole,  the  Sestines  and  the  Elegy  of  Agiletta 
must  be  reckoned  Alberti's  best  performances  in  verse.2 
Here  his  gnomic  wisdom  finds  expression  in  pregnant, 
almost  epigrammatic  utterances.  There  are  passages 
in  the  Agilcttay  weighty  with  packed  sentences, 
which  remind  an  English  reader  of  Bacon's  lines  on 
human  life.3  Still  it  is  the  poetry  of  a  ma.i  largely 
gifted,  but  not  born  to  be  a  singer.  It  may  be  worth 

'  Op.  Volg.  v.  352.  J  Ibid.  pp.  355-359-  367-372. 

J  For  example  the  lines  beginning  "  Sospetto  e  cure."     Ibid.  p.  368, 


214  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

adding  to  this  brief  notice  of  Alberti's  rhymes,  that  he 
essayed  Latin  meters  in  Italian.  The  following  elegiac 
couplet  belongs  to  him l : 

Questa  per  estremo  miserabile  epistola  mando 
A  te  che  spregi  miseramente  noi. 

It  is  not  worth  printing.  But  it  illustrates  that  en- 
deavor to  fuse  the  forms  of  ancient  with  the  material 
of  modern  art,  which  underlay  Alberti's  practical  ex- 
periments in  architecture. 

It  may  seem  that  too  much  attention  has  already 
been  given  to  Alberti  and  his  works.  Yet  when  we 
consider  his  peculiar  position  in  the  history  of  the 
Renaissance,  when  we  remember  the  singular  beauty 
of  his  character,  and  reflect  that,  first  among  the 
humanists  of  mark,  he  deigned  to  labor  for  the  pub- 
lic and  to  cultivate  his  mother  tongue,  a  certain  dis- 
proportion in  the  space  allotted  him  may  be  excused. 
What  his  immediate  successors  in  the  field  of  erudi- 
tion thought  of  him,  can  be  gathered  from  a  passage 
in  Poliziano's  preface  to  the  first  edition  of  his  work 
on  Architecture.2  "To  praise  the  author  is  beyond 
the  narrow  limits  of  a  letter,  beyond  the  poor  reach  of 
my  powers  of  eloquence.  Nothing,  however  abstruse 
in  learning,  however  remote  from  the  ordinary  range 
of  scholarship,  was  hidden  from  his  genius.  One 
might  question  whether  he  was  better  fitted  for  oratory 
or  for  poetry,  whether  his  speech  was  the  more  weighty 
or  the  more  polished."  These  great  qualities  Alberti 

1  Op.  Volg.  \.  Ixv.  He  was  not  alone  in  this  experiment.  Barbarous 
Italian  Sapphics  and  Hexameters  are  to  be  found  in  the  Accademia  Cor- 
onaria  on  Friendship,  of  which  more  in  the  next  chapter. 

«  De  Re  ^Edificatoria,  Florence,  1485.    This  preface  is  a  letter  ad 
dressed  to  Lorenzo  de'  Medici. 


ALBERTrS    GENIUS.  215 

placed  freely  at  the  service  of  the  unlettered  laity. 
He  is  therefore  the  hero  of  that  age  which  I  have 
called  the  period  of  transition. 

In  Alberti,  moreover,  we  study  the  best  type  of  the 
Italian  intellect  as  it  was  molded,  on  emergence  from 
the  middle  ages,  by  those  double  influences  of  hu- 
manism and  fine  art  which  determined  the  Renais- 
sance. Though  his  genius  was  rather  artistic  than 
scientific,  all  problems  of  nature  and  of  man  attracted 
him;  and  he  dealt  freely  with  them  in  the  spirit  of 
true  modern  curiosity.  His  method  shows  no  trace 
either  of  mystical  theology  or  of  crooked  scholas- 
ticism. He  surveyed  the  world  with  a  meditative 
but  observant  glance,  avoiding  the  deeper  questions 
of  ontology,  and  depicting  what  he  noticed  with  the 
realism  of  a  painter.  This  powerful  pictorial  faculty 
made  his  sketches  from  contemporary  life — the  de- 
scription of  the  gambler  in  the  Deiciarchia;  the  portrait 
of  the  sage  in  the  Teogenio;  the  domestic  colloquies 
of  Giannozzo  with  his  wife  in  the  Famiglia;  the  in- 
terior of  a  coquette's  chamber  in  the  Amiria — sur- 
prising for  sincerity  and  fullness.  As  a  writer,  he 
has  the  same  merit  that  we  recognize  in  Masaccio  and 
Ghirlandajo  among  the  fresco-painters  of  that  age. 
But  Alberti's  touch  is  more  sympathetic,  his  humanity 
more  loving. 

He  was  not  eminent  as  a  metaphysician.  From 
Plato  he  only  borrowed  something  of  his  literary 
art,  and  something  of  ethical  elevation,  leaving  to 
Ficino  the  mysticism  which  then  passed  for  Platonic 
science.  His  ideal  of  the  virtuous  man  is  a  Floren- 
tine burgher,  honorable  but  keen  in  business,  open 


216  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

to  culture  of  all  kinds,  untainted  by  the  cynicism 
that  marred  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  lacking  the  licentious 
traits  of  the  Novelle.  Alberti's  Padre  di  Famiglia 
might  have  stepped  from  the  walls  of  the  Riccardi 
Chapel  or  the  Choir  of  S.  Maria  Novella,  in  his  grave 
red  lucco,  with  the  cold  and  powerful  features.  The 
life  praised  above  all  others  by  Alberti  is  the  life  of  a 
meditative  student,  withdrawn  from  State  affairs,  and 
corresponding  with  men  of  a  like  tranquil  nature. 
This  ideal  was  realized  by  Sannazzaro  in  his  Mergel- 
lina,  by  Ficino  at  Montevecchio,  by  Pico  at  Querceto. 
Just  as  his  science  and  his  philosophy  were  aesthetic, 
so  were  his  religion  and  his  morality.  He  conformed 
to  the  ceremonies  of  the  Catholic  Church.  But  the 
religious  sentiment  had  already  become  in  him  rational 
rather  than  emotional,  and  less  a  condition  of  the 
conscience  than  of  the  artistic  sensibility.  Honor  in 
men,  honesty  in  women,  moved  his  admiration  because 
they  are  comely.  The  splendor  of  the  stars,  the  love- 
liness of  earth,  raised  him  in  thought  to  the  supreme 
source  of  beauty.  Whatever  the  genius  of  man  brings 
to  perfection  of  grace,  he  called  divine,  realizing  for 
the  first  time  the  piety  that  finds  God  in  the  human 
spirit.1 

The  harmonious  lines  and  the  vast  spaces  of  the 
Florentine  Duomo  thrilled  him  like  music,  merging 
the  charm  of  art  in  the  high  worship  of  a  cultivated 
nature.  "This  temple,"  he  writes  in  a  passage  that 
might  be  quoted  as  the  quintessential  exposition  of  his 

1  "Quicquid  ingenio  esset  hominum  cum  quadam  effectum  elegantia, 
id  prope  divinum  dicebat,"  says  the  anonymous  biographer.  This  sen- 
tence is  the  motto  of  humanism  as  elaborated  by  the  artistic  sense.  Its 
discord  with  the  religion  of  the  middle  ages  is  apparent 


HIS    SENSE    OF  HARMONY.  21 7 

mind,1  "  has  in  it  both  grace  and  majesty,  and  I  delight 
to  notice  that  union  of  slender  elegance  with  full  and 
vigorous  solidity,  which  shows  that  while  every  mem- 
ber is  designed  to  please,  the  whole  is  built  for  perpe- 
tuity. Inside  these  aisles  there  is  the  climate  of 
eternal  spring — wind,  frost,  and  rime  without ;  a  quiet 
and  mild  air  within — the  blaze  of  summer  on  the 
square;  delicious  coolness  here.  Above  all  things  I 
delight  in  feeling  the  sweetness  of  those  voices  busied 
at  the  sacrifice,  and  in  the  sacred  rites  our-  classic 
ancestors  called  mysteries.  All  other  modes  and 
kinds  of  singing  weary  with  reiteration ;  only  religious 
music  never  palls.  I  know  not  how  others  are  affected; 
but  for  myself,  those  hymns  and  psalms  of  the  Church 
produce  on  me  the  very  effect  for  which  they  were 
designed,  soothing  all  disturbance  of  the  soul,  and  in- 
spiring a  certain  ineffable  languor  full  of  reverence 
toward  God.  What  heart  of  man  is  so  rude  as  not  to 
be  softened  when  he  hears  the  rhythmic  rise  and  fall 
of  those  voices,  complete  and  true,  in  cadences  so 
sweet  and  flexible  ?  I  assure  you  that  I  never  listen 
in  these  mysteries  and  funeral  ceremonies  to  the  Greek 
words  which  call  on  God  for  aid  against  our  human 
wretchedness,  without  weeping.  Then,  too,  I  ponder 
\vhat  power  music  brings  with  it  to  soften  us  and 
soothe." 

It  would  be  difficult  with  greater  spontaneity 
and  truth  to  delineate  the  emotions  stirred  in  an 
artistic  nature  by  the  services  of  a  cathedral.  It  is 
the  language,  however,  not  of  a  devout  Christian,  but 
of  one  who,  long  before  Goethe,  had  realized  the 
'  OJ>.  Volg.  \.  8. 


2l8  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Goethesque  ideal  of  "  living  with  fixed  purpose  in  the 
Whole,  the  Good,  the  Beautiful." 

Alberti  both  in  his  width  of  genius  and  in  his  limi- 
tations— in  his  all-embracing  curiosity  and  aptitude  for 
knowledge,  his  sensitiveness  to  every  charm,  his  strong 
practical  bias,  the  realism  of  his  pictures,  the  objec- 
tivity of  his  style,  his  indifference  to  theology  and  me- 
taphysic,  the  largeness  of  his  love  for  all  things  that 
have  grace,  the  substitution  of  sesthetical  for  moral 
standards,  the  purity  of  his  taste,  the  tranquillity  and 
urbanity  of  his  spirit,  his  Stoic- Epicurean  acceptance 
of  the  world  where  man  may  be  content  to  dwell  and 
build  himself  a  home  of  beauty — was  a  true  represen- 
tative of  his  age.  What  attracts  us  in  the  bronze-work 
of  Ghiberti,  in  the  bass-reliefs  of  Delia  Robbia,  in  Ros- 
sellino's  sleeping  Cardinal  di  Portogallo,  in  Ghirlan- 
dajo's  portraits  and  the  airy  space  of  Mas  ccio's  back- 
grounds, in  the  lives  of  Ficino  and  Pomponio  Leto,  in 
the  dome  of  Brunelleschi,  in  the  stanzas  of  Poliziano, 
arrives  at  consciousness  in  Alberti,  pervades  his  writ- 
ing, and  finds  unique  expression  in  the  fragment  of 
his  Latin  biography.  Yet  we  must  not  measure  the 
age  of  Cosimo  de'  Medici  and  Roderigo  Borgia  by  the 
standard  of  Alberti.  He  presents  the  spirit  of  the 
fifteenth  century  at  its  very  best.  Philosophical  and 
artistic  sympathy  compensate  in  his  religion  for  that 
period's  lack  of  pious  faith.  Its  political  degradation 
assumes  in  him  the  shape  of  a  fastidious  retirement 
from  vulgar  strife.  Its  lawlessness,  caprice,  and  vio- 
lence are  regulated  by  the  motto  "Nothing  overmuch" 
which  forms  the  keystone  of  his  ethics.  Its  realism 
is  tempered  by  his  love  for  man  and  beast  and  tree — 


THE   HYPNEROTOMACHIA.  219 

that  love  which  made  him  weep  when  he  beheld  the 
summer  fields  and  labors  of  the  husbandman.  Its 
sensuality  finds  no  place  in  his  harmonious  nature. 
Many  defects  of  the  century  are  visible  enough  in 
Alberti ;  but  what  redeemed  Italy  from  corruption  and 
rendered  her  capable  of  great  and  brilliant  work 
amid  the  chaos  of  States  ruining  in  infidelity  and  vice — 
that  free  energy  of  the  intellect,  open  to  all  influences, 
inventive  of  ideas,  creative  of  beauty,  which  ennobled 
her  Renaissance — burned  in  him  with  mild  and  tranquil 
radiance. 

This  is  perhaps  the  fittest  place  to  notice  a  re- 
markable book,  which,  though  it  cannot  be  reckoned 
among  the  masterpieces  of  Italian  literature,  is  too 
important  in  its  bearing  on  the  history  of  the  Re- 
naissance to  be  passed  in  silence.  The  Hypneroto- 
machia  Poliphili,  or  "  Poliphil's  Strife  of  Love  in  a 
Dream,"  was  written  by  Francesco  Colonna,  a  Domini- 
can monk,  at  Treviso  in  1467.*  There  is  some  reason 
to  conjecture  that  he  composed  it  first  in  Latin ; 2  but 
when  it  appeared  in  print  in  1499,  it  had  already 
assumed  the  garb  of  a  strange  maccaronic  style,  blend- 
ing the  euphuisms  of  affected  rhetoric  with  phrases 
culled  from  humanistic  pedantry.  The  base  of  the 
language  professes  to  be  Italian ;  but  it  is  an  Italian 
Latinized  in  all  its  elements,  and  interlarded  with 
scraps  of  Greek  and  Hebrew.  The  following  descrip- 

1  This  we  learn  from  the  last  words  of  the  first  edition,  "  Tarvisii 
cum  decorissimis  Poliae  amore  lorulis  distineretur  miseilus  Poliphilus 
MCCCCLXVII."  The  author's  name  is  given  in  the  initial  letters  to  the 
thirty-eight  chapters  of  the  book. 

a  For  this  and  other  points  about  the  Hypnerotomachia  see  Ilg's 
treatise  Ueber  der  Kunsthistorischen  Werth  der  Hypnerotomachia  Po 
liphili,  Wien,  Braunmiiller,  1872. 


330  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

tion  of  the  Dawn,  with  which  the  book  opens,  may 
serve  as  a  specimen  of  its  peculiar  dialect l : 

Phoebo  in  quel  hora  manando,  che  la  fronte  di  Matuta  Leucothea 
candidava,  fora  gia  dalle  Oceans  unde,  le  volubile  rote  sospese  non 
dimonstrava.  Ma  sedulo  cum  gli  sui  volucri  cabaili,  Pyroo  primo,  & 
Eoo  al  quanto  apparendo,  ad  dipingere  le  lycophe  quadrige  della 
figliola  di  vermigliante  rose,  velocissimo  inseguentila,  non  dimorava. 
Et  coruscante  gia  sopra  le  cerulee  &  inquiete  undule,  le  sue  irradiante 
come  crispulavano.  Dal  quale  adventicio  in  quel  puncto  occidua  da- 
vase  la  non  cornuta  Cynthia,  solicitando  gli  dui  cabaili  del  vehiculo 
suo  cum  il  Mulo,  lo  uno  candido  &  laltro  fusco,  trahenti  ad  lultimo 
Horizonta  discriminante  gli  Hemisperii  pervenuta,  &  dalla  pervia 
Stella  ari  centare  el  di,  fugata  cedeva.  In  quel  tempo  quando  che  gli 
Rhiphaei  monti  erano  placidi,  ne  cum  tanta  rigidecia  piu  lalgente  & 
frigorifico  Euro  cum  el  laterale  flando  quassabondo  el  mandava  gli 
teneri  ramuli,  &  ad  inquietare  gli  mobili  scirpi  &  pontuti  iunci  & 
debili  Cypiri,  &  advexare  gli  plichevoli  vimini  &  agitare  gli  lenti 
salici,  &  proclinare  la  fragile  abiete  sotto  gli  corni  di  Tauro  lascivianti. 
Quanta  n  el  hyjjerno  tempo  spirare  solea.  Similmente  el  iactabondo 
Orione  cessando  di  persequire  lachrymoso,  lornato  humero  Taurino 
delle  sete  sorore. 

1  It  ought,  however,  to  be  said  that,  being  the  first  paragraph  of  the 
whole  book,  its  style  is  not  so  free  and  simple  as  in  more  level  passages. 
Though  I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  the  meaning  clearly,  I  subjoin  a 
translation. — "  Phoebus  advancing  at  that  moment,  when  the  forehead  of 
Matuta  Leucothea  whitened,  already  free  from  Ocean's  waves,  had  not  yet 
shown  his  whirling  wheels  suspense.  But  bent  with  his  swift  chargers, 
Pyrous  first  and  Eous  just  disclosed  to  view,  on  painting  the  pale  chariot 
of  his  daughter  with  vermeil  roses,  in  most  vehement  flight  pursuing  her, 
made  no  delay.  And  sparkling  over  the  azure  and  unquiet  wavelets,  his 
light-showering  tresses  flowed  in  curls.  Upon  whose  advent  at  that  point 
descending  to  her  rest  stayed  Cynthia  without  horns,  urging  the  two  steeds 
of  her  carriage  with  the  Mule,  the  one  white  and  the  other  dark,  drawing 
toward  the  furthest  horizon  which  divides  the  hemispheres  where  she  had 
come,  and,  routed  by  the  piercing  star  who  lures  the  day,  was  yielding. 
At  that  time  when  the  Riphaean  mountains  were  undisturbed,  nor  with 
so  cold  a  gust  the  rigid  and  frost-creating  east-wind  with  the  side-blast 
blowing  made  the  tender  branches  quake,  and  tossed  the  mobile  stems 
and  spiked  reeds  and  yielding  grasses,  and  vexed  the  pliant  tendrils,  and 
shook  the  flexible  willows,  and  bent  the  frail  fir-branches  'neath  the  horns 
of  Taurus  in  their  wantonness.  As  in  the  winter  time  that  wind  was 
wont  to  breathe.  Likewise  the  boastful  Orion  was  at  the  point  of  staying 
to  pursue  with  tears  the  beauteous  Taurine  shoulder  of  the  seven  sisters 


ITS   RELATION    TO    THE    AGE.  211 

Whether  Francesco  Colonna  prepared  the  redaction 
from  which  this  paragraph  is  quoted,  admits  of  doubt. 
A  scholar,  Leonardo  Crasso  of  Verona,  defrayed  the 
cost  of  the  edition.  Manutius  Aldus  printed  the  vol- 
ume and  its  pages  were  adorned  with  precious  wood- 
cuts, the  work  of  more  than  one  anonymous  master 
of  the  Lombardo- Venetian  school.1  It  was  dedicated 
to  Duke  Guidobaldo  of  Urbino. 

For  the  student  of  Italian  literature  in  its  transition 
from  the  middle  age  to  the  Renaissance,  the  Hypneroto- 
machia  has  special  and  many-sided  interest.  It  shows 
that  outside  Florence,  where  the  pure  Italian  idiom 
was  too  vigorous  to  be  suppressed,  humanistic  fashion 
had  so  far  taken  possession  of  the  literary  fancy  as  to 
threaten  the  very  existence  of  the  mother  tongue. 
But,  more  than  this,  it  represents  that  epoch  of  trans- 
ition in  its  fourfold  intellectual  craving  after  the 
beauty  of  antiquity,  the  treasures  of  erudition,  the 
multiplied  delights  of  art,  and  the  liberty  of  nature. 
These  cravings  are  allegorized  in  a  romance  of  love, 
which  blends  medieval  mysticism  with  modern  sensu- 
ousness.  Like  the  style,  the  matter  of  the  book  is 
maccaronic,  parti-colored  and  confused;  but  the  pas- 
sion which  controls  so  many  elements  is  genuine  and 
simple.  The  spirit  of  the  earlier  Renaissance  reflects 
itself,  as  in  a  mirror,  in  the  Dream  of  Poliphil.  So 
essentially  is  it  the  product  of  a  transitional  moment 

1  When  the  book  was  translated  into  French  and  republished  at 
Paris  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  blocks  were  imitated,  and  at  a  later 
epoch  it  became  fashionable  to  refer  them  to  Raphael.  The  mistake  was 
gross.  Its  only  justification  is  the  style  adopted  by  the  French  imitators 
in  their  rehandling  of  the  illustrations  to  Poliphil's  soul  pleading  before 
Venus.  These  cuts  seem  to  have  felt  the  influence  of  the  Farnesina 
frescoes. 


Z22  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

that  when  the  first  enthusiasm  for  its  euphuistic  ped- 
antry and  sesthetical  rapture  had  subsided,  the  key  to 
its  most  obvious  meaning  was  lost.  In  the  preface  to 
the  fourth  French  edition  (1600),  Beroald  de  Verville 
hinted  that  the  volume  held  deep  alchemistic  secrets  for 
those  who  could  discover  them.  After  this  distortion, 
the  book  passed  into  not  altogether  unmerited  oblivion. 
It  had  done  its  work  for  the  past  age.  It  now  remains 
an  invaluable  monument  for  those  who  would  fain 
reconstruct  the  century  which  gave  it  birth. 

The  Hypnerotomachia  professes  to  relate  its  au- 
thor's love  for  Polia,  a  nun,  his  search  after  her,  and 
their  union,  at  the  close  of  sundry  trials  and  adventures, 
in  the  realm  of  Venus.  Poliphil  dreams  that  he  finds 
himself  in  a  wild  wood,  where  he  is  assailed  by  mon- 
strous beasts,  and  suffers  great  distress  of  mind.  He 
prays  to  Diespiter,  and  comes  forthwith  into  a  pleasant 
valley,  through  which  he  wanders  in  the  hope  of  find- 
ing Polia.  At  the  outset  of  his  journey  he  meets  five 
damsels,  Aphea,  Offressia,  Orassia,  Achoe,  Geussia, 
who  conduct  him  to  their  queen,  Eleuterilyda.1  She 
understands  his  quest,  and  assigns  the  maidens,  Logis- 
tica  and  Thelemia,  to  be  his  guides  into  the  palace  of 
Telosia.  They  journey  together  and  arrive  at  the 
abode  of  Dame  Telosia,  which  has  three  gates  sever- 
ally inscribed  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin  characters 

1  Here  is  the  description  of  Poliphil's  reception  by  the  damsels: 
"  Respose  una  lepidula  placidamente  dicendo.  Da  mi  la  mano.  Hora  si 
tu  sospite  &  il  bene  venuto.  Nui  al  presento  siamo  cinque  sociale  comite 
come  il  vedi,  Et  io  me  chiamo  Aphea.  Et  questa  che  porta  li  buxuli  & 
gli  bianchissimi  liuteamini,  e  nominata  Offressia.  Et  questaltra  che  dil 
splendente  speculo  (delitie  nostre)  e  gerula,  Orassia  e  il  suo  nome.  Cos- 
tei  che  teiie  la  sonora  lyra,  e  dicta  Achoe.  Questa  ultima,  che  questc 
vaso  di  pretiosissimo  liquore  baiula,  ha  nome  Geussia." 


THE    ALLEGORY.  22$ 

\vith  legends,  the  meaning  whereof  is  God's  Glory, 
Mother  of  Love,  and  Worldly  Glory.  Poliphil  enters 
the  first  door,  and  finds  the  place  within  but  little  to 
his  liking.  Then  he  tries  the  third,  and  is  no  better 
pleased.  Lastly  he  gains  admittance  to  the  demesne 
of  Love's  Mother,  where  he  is  content  to  stay.  Lovely 
and  lascivious  maidens  greet  him  kindly;  and  while 
he  surrenders  to  their  invitation,  one  of  his  attendants, 
Logistica,  takes  her  flight.  He  is  left  with  his  beloved 
Thelemia  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  this  enchanting 
region. 

Thus  far  the  allegory  is  not  hard  to  read.  Poliphil, 
or  the  lover  of  Polia,  escapes  from  the  perils  of  the 
forest  where  his  earlier  life  was  passed,  by  petition  to 
the  Father  of  Gods  and  Men.  He  places  himself  in 
the  hands  of  the  five  senses,  who  conduct  him  to  free- 
will. Freewill  appoints  for  his  further  guidance  reason 
and  inclination,  who  are  to  lead  him  to  the  final  choice 
of  lives.  When  he  arrives  at  the  point  where  this 
choice  has  to  be  made,  he  perceives  that  God,  the 
world,  and  beauty,  who  is  mother  of  love,  compete 
for  his  willing  service.  He  rejects  religion  and  am- 
bition; and  no  sooner  has  his  preference  for  love  and 
beauty  been  avowed,  than  the  reasoning  faculty  deserts 
him,  and  he  is  abandoned  to  inclination. 

While  Poliphil  is  dallying  with  the  nymphs  of 
pleasure  and  his  own  wanton  will,  he  is  suddenly 
abandoned  by  these  companions,  and  pursues  his 
journey  alone.1  Before  long,  however,  he  becomes 

1  A  portion  of  the  passage  describing  this  dalliance  may  be  extracted 
as  a  further  specimen  of  the  author's  style:  "Cum  lascivi  vulti,  et  gli 
pecti  procaci,  ochii  blandienti  et  nella  rosea  fronte  micanti  e  ludibondi. 
Forme  prae-excellente,  Habiti  incentivi,  Moventie  puellare,  Risguardi 


224  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

aware  of  a  maiden,  exceedingly  fair  to  look  upon,  who 
carries  in  her  hand  a  lighted  torch.  With  her  for 
guide,  he  passes  through  many  pleasant  places,  arriving 
finally  at  the  temple  of  Venus  Physizoe.  This  maiden, 
though  as  yet  he  cannot  recognize  her,  is  the  Polia  he 
seeks,  and  on  their  way  together  he  feels  the  influences 
of  her  love-compelling  beauty.  They  enter  the  chapel 
of  Venus,  and  are  graciously  received  by  the  prioress 
who  guards  that  sanctuary.  Mystical  rites  of  initiation 
and  consecration  are  performed.  Polia  lays  down  her 
torch,  and  is  discovered  by  her  lover.  Then  they  are 
wedded  by  grace  of  the  abiding  goddess;  and  having 
undergone  the  ceremony  of  spousal,  they  resume 
their  wanderings  together.  They  pass  through  a 
desolate  city  of  tombs  and  ruins,  named  Polyandrion, 
where  are  the  sepulchers  and  epitaphs  of  lovers.  Here, 
too,  they  witness  the  pangs  of  souls  tormented  for 
their  crimes  against  the  deity  of  Love.  Afterwards  they 
reach  a  great  water,  where  Cupid's  barge  comes  sailing 
by,  and  takes  them  to  the  island  of  Cythera.  It  is  a 
level  land  of  gardens,  groves  and  labyrinths,  adorned 
with  theaters  and  baths,  and  watered  by  a  mystic  font 
of  Venus.  Near  the  Tomb  of  Adonis  in  this  demesne 
of  Love,  Polia  and  Poliphil  sit  down  to  rest  among  the 
nymphs,  and  Polia  relates  the  story  of  their  early  passion. 

morclenti,  Exornato  mundissimo.  Niuna  parte  simulate,  ma  tutto  dalla 
natura  perfecto,  cum  exquisita  politione,  Niente  difforme  ma  tutto  har- 
monia  concinnissima,  Capi  flavi  cum  le  trece  biondissime  e  crini  insolari 
tante  erano  bellissime  complicate,  cum  cordicelle,  o  vero  nextruli  di 
seta  e  di  fili  doro  intorte,  quanto  che  in  tutto  la  operatione  humana  ex- 
cedevano,  circa  la  testa  cum  egregio  componimento  invilupate  e  cum 
achi  crinali  detente,  e  la  fronte  di  cincinni  capreoli  silvata,  cum  lascivula 
mconstantia  praependenti."  There  is  an  obvious  study  of  Boccaccesque 
phrase,  with  a  no  less  obvious  desire  to  improve  upon  its  exquisiteness 
of  detail,  masking  an  incapacity  to  write  connectedly. 


THE   ROMANCE   OF   POLIA.  225 

It  is  here,  if  anywhere,  that  we  come  across  reality 
in  this  romance.  Polia  tells  how  the  town  of  Treviso 
was  founded,  and  of  what  illustrious  lineage  she  came 
and  how  she  vowed  herself  to  the  service  of  Diana 
when  the  plague  was  raging  in  the  city.  In  Dian's 
temple  Poliphil  first  saw  her,  and  fainted  at  the  sight, 
and  she,  made  cruel  by  the  memory  of  her  vows, 
left  him  upon  the  temple- floor  for  dead.  But  when 
she  returned  home,  a  vision  of  women  punished  for 
their  hard  heart  smote  her  conscience;  and  her  old 
nurse,  an  adept  in  the  ways  of  love,  counseled  her 
to  seek  the  Prioress  of  Venus,  and  confess,  and  enter 
into  reconcilement  with  her  lover.  What  the  nurse 
advised,  Polia  did,  and  in  the  temple  of  Venus  she 
met  Poliphil.  He,  while  his  body  lay  entranced  upon 
the  floor  of  Dian's  church,  had  visited  the  heavens 
in  spirit  and  obtained  grace  from  Venus  and  Cupid. 
Therefore,  the  twain  were  now  of  one  accord,  and 
ready  to  be  joined  in  bonds  of  natural  affection.  At 
the  end  of  Polia's  story,  the  nymphs  leave  both  lovers 
to  enjoy  their  new-found  happiness.  But  here  the 
power  of  sleep  is  spent,  and  Poliphil,  awakened  by 
the  song  of  swallows,  starts  from  dreams  with  "  Fare- 
well, my  Polia ! "  upon  his  lips. 

Such  is  the  frail  and  slender  basis  of  romance, 
corresponding,  in  the  details  of  Polia's  narrative,  to  an 
ordinary  novella,  upon  which  the  bulky  edifice  of  the 
Hypnerotomachia  is  built.  This  love-story,  while  it 
gives  form  to  the  book,  is  clearly  not  the  author's 
main  motive.  What  really  concerns  him  most  deeply 
is  the  handling  of  artistic  themes,  which,  though 
introduced  by  way  of  digressions,  occupy  by  far  the 


226  RENAISSANCE   IN    ITALY. 

larger  portion  of  his  work.  The  Hypnerotomachia  is 
an  encyclopaedia  of  curious  learning,  a  treasure-house 
of  aethetical  descriptions  and  discussions,  vividly 
reflecting  the  two  ruling  enthusiasms  of  the  earlier 
Renaissance  for  scholarship  and  art.  Minute  details 
of  inexhaustible  variety,  bringing  before  our  imagina- 
tion the  architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  its  gardens,  palaces  and  temples,  its 
processions,  triumphs  and  ceremonial  shows,  its  delight 
in  costly  jewels,  furniture,  embroidery  and  banquets, 
its  profound  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  women,  and  its 
admiration  for  the  goodliness  of  athletic  manhood,  are 
massed  together  with  bewildering  profusion.  Not  one 
of  the  technical  arts  which  flourished  in  the  dawn  of 
the  Renaissance  but  finds  due  celebration  here;  and 
the  whole  is  penetrated  with  that  fervent  reverence 
for  antiquity  which  inspired  the  humanists.  Yet  the 
Hypnerotomachia,  though  sometimes  tedious,  is  never 
frigid.  With  the  precision  of  a  treatise  and  the  mi- 
nuteness of  an  inventory,  it  combines  the  ardor  of 
impassioned  feeling,  the  rapture  of  anticipation,  the 
artist's  blending  with  the  lover's  ecstasy.  It  is  a 
dithyramb  of  the  imagination,  inflamed  by  no  Oriental 
lust  of  mere  magnificence,  but  by  the  fine  sense  of 
what  is  beautiful  in  form,  rare  in  material,  just  in 
proportion,  exquisite  in  workmanship. 

Whether  the  Hypnerotomachia  exercised  a  power- 
ful influence  over  the  productions  of  the  Italian  genius, 
can  be  doubted.  But  that  it  presents  an  epitome  or 
figured  abstract  of  tne  Renaissance  in  its  earlier  luxu- 
riance, is  unmistakable.  Reading  it,  we  wander 
through  the  collections  of  Paul  II.,  rich  with  jewels, 


THE    ROMANCE    OF  ART.  227 

intagli,  cameos  and  coins;  we  enter  Amadeo's  chapels, 
Filarete's  palaces,  Bramante's  peristyles  and  loggie; 
we  pace  the  gardens  of  the  Brenta  and  the  Sforza's 
deer-parks  at  Pavia;  we  watch  Lorenzo's  Florentine 
trionfi  and  Pietro  Riario's  festivals  in  Rome;  Gior- 
gione's  fetes  champttres  are  set  for  us  in  framework 
of  the  choicest  fruits  and  flowers;  we  hear  Ciriac  of 
Ancona  discoursing  on  his  epigraphs  and  broken 
marbles;  before  our  eyes,  as  in  a  gallery,  are  ranged 
the  bass-reliefs  of  Donatello  wrought  in  bronze,  Man- 
tegna's  triumphs,  Signorelli's  arabesques,  the  terra-cotta 
of  the  Lombard  and  the  stucco  of  the  Roman  schools, 
the  carved- work  of  Alberti's  church  at  Rimini,  the 
tarsiatura  of  Fra  Giovanni  da  Verona's  choir-stalls, 
doorways  from  Milanese  and  chimneys  from  Urbino 
palaces,  Vatican  tapestries  and  trellis-work  of  beaten 
iron  from  Prato — all  that  the  Renaissance  in  its  bloom 
produced,  is  here  depicted  with  the  wealth  and  warmth 
of  fancy  doting  on  anticipated  beauties. 

Of  the  author,  Francesco  Colonna,  very  little  is 
known,  except  that  he  was  born  in  1433  at  Venice, 
that  he  attached  himself  to  Ermolao  Barbaro,  spent  a 
portion  of  his  manhood  in  the  Dominican  cloister  of 
S.  Niccol6  at  Treviso,  and  died  at  Venice  in  1627. 
Whether  the  love-tale  of  the  Hypnerotomachia  had  a 
basis  of  reality,  or  whether  we  ought  to  regard  it 
wholly  from  the  point  of  view  of  allegory,  cannot  be 
decided  now.  It  is,  however,  probable  that  a  sub- 
stratum  of  experience  underlay  the  vast  mass  of 
superimposed  erudition  and  enthusiastic  reverie.  The 
references  to  Polia's  name  and  race;  her  epitaph 
appended  to  the  first  edition;  the  details  of  her  narra- 


228  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

tive,  which  somewhat  break  the  continuity  of  style  and 
introduce  a  biographical  element  into  the  romance; 
the  very  structure  of  the  allegory  which  assigns  so 
large  a  part  in  life  to  sensuous  instinct — all  these  points 
seem  to  prove  that  Poliphil  was  moved  by  memory  of 
what  had  really  happened,  no  less  than  by  the  desire 
to  express  a  certain  mood  of  feeling  and  belief.  Such 
mingling  of  actual  emotion  with  ideal  passion  in  a  work 
of  imagination,  dedicated  to  a  woman  who  is  also  an 
emblem,  was  consistent  with  the  practice  of  medieval 
poets.  Polia  belongs,  under  altered  circumstances,  to 
the  same  class  as  Beatrice.  The  hypothesis  that, 
whoever  she  may  have  been,  she  had  become  for  her 
lover  a  metaphor  of  antique  beauty,  is  sufficiently 
attractive  and  plausible.  If  we  adopt  this  theory, 
we  must  interpret  the  dark  wood  where  Poliphil  first 
found  himself,  to  mean  the  anarchy  of  Gothic  art; 
while  his  emancipation  through  the  senses  and  The- 
lemia  characterizes  the  spirit  in  which  the  Italians 
achieved  the  Revival.  The  extraordinary  care 
lavished  upon  details,  interrupting  the  course  of 
the  romance  and  withdrawing  our  sympathy  from 
Polia,  meet  from  this  point  of  view  with  justification. 
Veiling  his  enthusiasm  for  the  renascent  past  beneath 
the  fiction  of  a  novel,  Francesco  Colonna  invests  the 
lady  of  his  intellectual  choice,  the  handmaid  of  Aphro- 
dite, evoked  from  the  sepulcher  where  arts  and 
sciences  lie  buried,  with  rich  Renaissance  trappings 
of  elaborate  device.  Beneath  those  exuberant  ara- 
besques, within  that  labyrinth  of  technically  perfect 
details,  suave  outlines,  delicate  contours  devoid  of 
content,  a  real  woman  would  be  lost.  But  if  Polia  be 


PASSION  FOR   ART  AND    SCHOLARSHIP.  229 

not  merely  a  woman,  if  she  be,  as  her  name  ico\ia 
seems  to  indicate,  at  the  same  time  the  vision  of 
resurgent  classic  beauty,  then  the  setting  which  her 
lover  has  contrived  is  adequate  to  the  influences 
which  inspired  him.  The  multiform  and  labored 
frame-work  of  his  picture  acquires  a  meaning  from  the 
spirit  of  the  goddess  whom  he  worships,  and  the  pre- 
siding genius  of  his  age  dwells  in  a  shrine,  each  point 
of  which  is  brilliant  with  the  splendor  which  that  spirit 
radiates. 

It  is,  therefore,  as  an  allegory  of  the  Renaissance, 
conscious  of  its  destiny  and  strongest  aspirations  in 
the  person  of  an  almost  nameless  monk,  that  we  should 
read  the  Hypnerotomachia.  Still,  even  so,  the  mark  of 
indecision,  which  rests  upon  the  many  twy-formed 
masterpieces  of  this  century,  is  here  discernible. 
Francesco  Colonna  has  one  foot  in  the  middle  ages, 
another  planted  on  the  firm  ground  of  the  modern  era. 
He  wavers  between  the  psychological  realism  of 
romance  and  the  philosophical  idealism  of  allegory. 
Polia  is  both  too  much  and  too  little  of  a  woman.  At 
one  time  her  personality  seems  as  distinct  as  that  of 
any  heroine  of  fiction;  at  another  we  lose  sight  of  her 
in  the  mist  of  symbolism.  Granting,  again,  that  she  is 
a  metaphor,  she  lends  herself  to  more  than  one  concep- 
tion. She  is  both  an  emblem  of  passion,  sanctified  by 
nature,  and  liberated  from  the  bondage  of  asceticism, 
and  also  an  emblem  of  ideal  beauty,  recovered  from 
the  past,  and  worshiped  by  a  scholar-artist. 

This  confusion  of  motives  and  uncertainty  of  aim, 
while  it  detracts  from  the  artistic  value  of  the 
Hypnerotomachia,  enhances  its  historical  importance. 


230  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

In  form,  the  book  has  to  be  classed  with  the  Visions 
of  the  middle  ages — the  Divine  Comedy,  the  Am 
orosa  Visione,  and  the  Quadriregio.  But  though  the 
form  is  medieval,  the  inspiration  of  this  prose-poem 
is  quite  other.  We  have  seen  already  how  Francesco 
Colonna,  traveling  in  search  of  Polia,  prayed  to  Ju- 
piter, and  how  the  senses  and  freewill  guided  him 
to  the  satisfaction  of  his  deepest  self  in  the  service 
of  Beauty.  It  is  in  the  temple  of  Venus  Physizoe 
(Venus  the  procreative  source  of  life  in  Nature)  that 
he  meets  with  his  love  and  is  wedded  to  her  in  the 
bonds  of  mutual  desire.1  Christianity  is  wholly,  we 
might  say  systematically,  ignored.  The  ascetic  stand- 
point of  the  middle  age  is  abandoned  for  another, 
antagonistic  to  its  ruling  impulses.  A  new  creed, 
a  new  cult,  are  introduced.  Polia,  whether  we  re- 
gard her  as  the  poet's  mistress  or  as  the  spirit  of 
antiquity  which  has  enamored  him,  is  won  by  worship 
paid  to  deities  of  natural  appetite.  In  its  essence, 
then,  the  Hypnerotomachia  corresponds  to  the  most 
fruitful  instinct  of  the  Renaissance — to  that  striving 
after  emancipation  which  restored  humanity  to  its 
heritage  in  the  realms  of  sense  and  reason.  Old  ideals, 
exhausted  and  devoid  of  vital  force,  are  exchanged  for 
fresh  and  beautiful  reality.  The  spirituality  of  the 
past,  which  has  become  consumptive  and  ineffective  by 
lapse  of  time  and  long  familiarity,  yields  to  vigorous 
animalism.  The  cloister  is  quitted  for  the  world, 

1  The  reiteration  of  sensuous  phrases  is  significant.  These  inscrip- 
tions, itavroov  roxaSt,  rtav  Set  itoieiv  xara  TTJY  ctvrov  <pv6iv,  yovol 
ttat  evcpvia,  together  with  the  Triumphs  of  Priapus  and  Cupid,  accord 
with  the  supremacy  of  Venus  Physizoe. 


PASSION  FOR   NATURE.  131 

religious  for  artistic  ecstasy,  celestial  for  -earthly  par- 
adise, scholasticism  for  humane  studies,  the  ascetic 
for  the  hedonistic  rule  of  conduct.  Criticised  accord- 
ing to  its  deeper  meaning,  the  Hypnerotomachia  is  the 
poem  of  which  Valla's  De  Voluptate  was  the  argument, 
of  which  Lorenzo  de'  Medici's  life  was  the  realization, 
and  the  life  of  Aretino  the  caricature.  If  it  assumes 
the  form  of  a  vision,  reminding  us  thereby  that  the 
author  was  born  upon  the  confines  of  the  middle  ages 
and  the  modern  era,  it  deals  with  the  vision  in  no 
Dantesque  spirit,  but  with  the  geniality  of  Apuleius. 
Allegory  is  but  a  transparent  veil,  to  make  the  nudity 
of  natural  impulse  fascinating.  As  in  Boccaccio,  so 
here  the  hymn  of  il  talento,  simple  appetite,  is  sung; 
but  the  fusion  of  artistic  and  humanistic  enthusiasms 
with  this  ground-motive  adds  peculiar  quality,  distinc- 
tive of  the  later  age  which  gave  it  birth. 

The  secret  of  its  charm,  which,  indeed,  it  shares 
with  earlier  Renaissance  art  in  general,  is  that  this 
yearning  after  freedom  has  been  felt  with  rapture,  but 
not  fully  satisfied.  The  season  of  repletion  and 
satiety  is  distant.  Venus  Physizoe  appears  to  Fran- 
cesco Colonna  radiant  above  all  powers  of  heaven  or 
earth,  because  he  is  a  monk  and  may  not  serve  her. 
Had  he  his  whole  will,  she  might  have  been  for  him 
Venus  Volgivaga,  and  he  the  author  of  another 
Puttana  Err  ante.  Nor  has  she  yet  assumed  the 
earnest  mask  of  science.  This  element  of  unassuaged 
desire,  indulged  in  longings  and  outgoings  of  the  fancy, 
this  recognition  of  man's  highest  good  and  happiness 
in  nature  by  one  who  has  forsworn  allegiance  to  the 
laws  of  nature,  adds  warmth  to  his  emotion  and  pene- 


23 a  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

trates  his  pictures  with  a  kind  of  passion.  The  arts 
and  scholarship,  which  divide  the  empire  of  his  soul 
with  beauty,  have  no  less  attraction  of  romance  than 
love  itself.  Nor  are  they  separated  in  his  mind  from 
nature.  Nature  and  antiquity,  knowledge  and  desire, 
the  reverence  for  abstract  beauty  and  the  instincts  of  a 
lover  are  fused  in  one  enthusiasm.  Thus  Francesco 
Colonna  makes  us  understand  how  Italy  used  both 
art  and  erudition  as  instruments  in  the  liberation  of 
human  energies.  For  the  thinkers  and  actors  of  that 
period,  antiquity  and  the  plastic  arts  were  aids  to  the 
recovery  of  a  paradise  from  which  man  had  been 
exiled.  They  could  not  dissociate  the  conception  of 
nature  from  studies  which  revealed  their  human  dig- 
nity and  freedom,  or  from  arts  whereby  they  expressed 
their  vivid  sense  of  beauty.  The  work  they  thus  in- 
augurated, had  afterwards  to  be  continued  by  the 
scientific  faculties. 

One  word  may  finally  be  said  about  the  peculiar 
delicacy  of  this  book.  The  Hypnerotomachia  is  no 
less  an  apotheosis  of  natural  appetite  than  the  Amoroso, 
Visione.  But  it  is  more  sentimental  and  imaginative, 
because  its  author  had  not  Boccaccio's  crude  experi- 
ence. It  anticipates  the  art  of  the  great  age — the  art 
of  Cellini  and  Giulio  Romano,  goldsmith-sculptors  and 
palace-builders;  but  it  is  more  refined  and  passionate, 
because  its  author  enjoyed  those  beauties  of  consum- 
mate craft  in  reverie  instead  of  practice.  It  interprets 
the  enthusiasm  of  Ciriac  and  Poggio,  discoverers  of 
manuscripts,  decipherers  of  epigraphs;  but  it  is  more 
naif  and  graceful  than  their  work  of  erudition,  because 
its  author  dealt  freely  with  his  learning  and  subordinated 


VISION   OF  RENAISSANCE. 


233 


scholarship  to  fancy.  In  short  the  Hypnerotomachia 
is  a  foreshadowing  of  the  Renaissance  in  its  prime — 
the  spirit  of  the  age  foreseen  in  dreams,  embodied  in 
imagination,  purged  of  material  alloy,  and  freed  from 
the  encumbrances  of  actuality. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

POPULAR  SECULAR  POETRY. 

Separation  between  Cultivated  Persons  and  the  People — Italian  despised 
by  the  Learned — Contempt  for  Vernacular  Literature — The  Certamen 
Coronarium — Literature  of  Instruction  for  the  Proletariate — Growth 
of  Italian  Prose — Abundance  of  Popular  Poetry — The  People  in  the 
Quattrocento  take  the  Lead — Qualities  of  Italian  Genius — Arthurian 
and  Carolingian  Romances — IRealidi  Francia — Andrea  of  Barberino 
and  his  Works — Numerous  Romances  in  Prose  and  Verse — Positive 
Spirit — Versified  Tales  from  Boccaccio — Popular  Legends — Ginevra 
degli  Almieri — Novel  of//  Grasso — Histories  in  Verse — Lamenti — 
The  Poets  of  the  People — Cantatori  in  Banco, — Antonio  Pucci — His 
Sermintesi — Political  Songs  —  Satires  —  Burchiello  —  His  Life  and 
Writings — Dance-Songs — Derived  from  Cultivated  Literature,  or  pro- 
duced by  the  People — Poliziano — Love-Songs — Rispetti&nA  Stornelli 
— The  Special  Meaning  of  Strambotti — Diffusion  of  this  Poetry  over 
Italy — Its  Permanence — Question  of  its  Original  Home — Intercom- 
munication and  Exchange  of  Dialects — Incatenature  and  Rappre 
saglie— Traveling  in  Medieval  Italy — The  Subject-Matter  of  this 
Poetry — Deficiency  in  Ballad  Elements — Canti  Monferrini — The  Bal- 
lad of  L'A-vvelenato  and  Lord  Ronald. 

DURING  the  fifteenth  century  there  was  an  almost  com- 
plete separation  between  the  cultivated  classes  and 
the  people.  Humanists,  intent  upon  the  exploration 
of  the  classics,  deemed  it  below  their  dignity  to  use  the 
vulgar  tongue.  They  thought  and  wrote  in  Latin,  and 
had  no  time  to  bestow  upon  the  education  of  the 
common  folk.  A  polite  public  was  formed,  who  in  the 
Courts  of  princes  and  the  palaces  of  noblemen  amused 
themselves  with  the  ephemeral  literature  of  pamphlets, 
essays,  and  epistles  in  the  Latin  tongue.  For  these 


THE    PEOPLE    AND    THE    SCHOLARS.  235 

well-educated  readers  Poggio  and  Pontano  wrote  their 
Latin  novels.  The  same  learned  audience  applauded 
the  gladiators  of  the  moment,  Valla  and  Filelfo,  when 
they  descended  into  the  arena  and  plied  each  other 
with  pseudo-Ciceronian  invectives.  To  quit  this  re- 
fined circle,  and  address  the  vulgar  crowd,  was  thought 
unworthy  of  a  man  of  erudition.  Even  Alberti,  as 
we  have  seen,  felt  bound  to  apologize  for  sending 
his  Teogenio  in  Italian  to  Lionello  d'  Este.  Only  here 
and  there  a  humanist  of  the  first  rank  is  found  who, 
like  Bruni,  devoted  a  portion  of  his  industry  to  the 
Italian  lives  of  Dante  and  Petrarch,  or  like  Filelfo, 
lectured  on  the  Divine  Comedy,  or  again  like  Landino, 
composed  a  Dantesque  commentary  in  the  mother 
tongue.  Moreover,  Dante  and  Petrarch  passed  for 
almost  classical;  and  in  nearly  all  such  instances  of 
condescension,  pecuniary  interest  swayed  the  scholar 
from  his  wonted  orbit.  It  was  want  of  skill  in  Latin 
rather  than  love  for  his  own  idiom  which  induced  Ves- 
pasiano  to  pen  his  lives  of  great  men  in  Italian.  Not 
spontaneous  inspiration,  but  the  whim  of  a  ducal 
patron  forced  Filelfo  to  use  terza  rima  for  his  worth- 
less poem  on  S.  John,  and  to  write  a  commentary  upon 
Petrarch  in  the  vernacular.1  One  of  this  man's  let- 
ters reveals  the  humanist's  contempt  for  the  people's 
language,  and  his  rooted  belief  in  the  immortality  of 

1  See  Rosmini,  Vita  di  Filelfo,  vol.  ii.  p.  13,  for  Filelfo's  dislike  of 
Italian.  In  the  dedication  of  his  Commentary  to  Filippo  Maria  Visconti 
he  says:  "Tanto  piti  volentieri  ho  intrapreso  questo  comento,  quanto 
dalla  tua  eccellente  Signoria  non  solo  invitato  sono  stato,  ma  pregato, 
lusingato  et  provocato."  The  first  Canto  opens  thus: 

O  Philippo  Maria  Anglo  possente, 
PerchS  mi  strengi  a  quel  che  non  poss'  io  ? 
Vuoi  tu  ch'  io  sia  ludibrio  d'  ogni  gente  ? 


236  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Latin.  It  is  worth  translating.1  "  I  will  answer  you/' 
he  says,  "  not  in  the  vulgar  language,  as  you  ask,  but 
in  Latin  and  our  own  true  speech;  for  I  have  ever  had 
an  abhorrence  for  the  talk  of  grooms  and  servants, 
equal  to  my  detestation  of  their  life  and  manners. 
You,  however,  call  that  dialect  vernacular  which,  when 
I  use  the  Tuscan  tongue,  I  sometimes  write.  All 
Italians  agree  in  praise  of  Tuscan.  Yet  I  only  employ 
it  for  such  matters  as  I  do  not  choose  to  transmit 
to  posterity.  Moreover,  even  that  Tuscan  idiom  is 
hardly  current  throughout  Italy,  while  Latin  is  far  and 
wide  diffused  throughout  the  habitable  world."  From 
this  interesting  epistle  we  gather  that  even  professional 
scholars  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  recog- 
nized Tuscan  as  a  quasi-literary  language,  superior  in 
polish  to  the  other  Italian  dialects,  but  not  to  be  com- 
pared for  dignity  and  durability  with  Latin.  It  also 
proves  that  the  language  of  Boccaccio  was  for  them 
almost  a  foreign  speech. 

This  attitude  of  learned  writers  produced  a  curious 
obtuseness  of  critical  insight.  Niccol6  Niccoli,  though 
he  was  a  Florentine,  called  Dante  "  a  poet  for  bakers 
and  cobblers."  Pico  della  Mirandola  preferred  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici's  verses  to  Petrarch.  Landino  complained, 
not,  indeed,  without  good  reason  in  that  century,  that 
the  vulgar  language  could  boast  of  no  great  authors 
Filippo  Villani,  in  the  proem  to  his  biographies,  apolo- 
gized for  his  father  Matteo,  who  exerted  humble  facul- 
ties and  scanty  culture  to  his  best  ability.  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici  defended  himself  for  paying  attention  to  an 
idiom  which  men  of  good  judgment  blamed  for  "  low 
1  Dated  Milan.  Feb.  1477.  Rosmini,  op.  cit.  p.  282. 


DECADENCE    OF  ITALIAN.  237 

ness,  incapacity  and  unworthiness  to  deal  with  high 
themes  or  grave  material."  Benedetto  Varchi,  who 
lived  to  be  an  excellent  though  somewhat  cumbrous 
writer  of  Italian  prose,  gives  this  account  of  his  early 
training1:  "I  remember  that  when  I  was  a  lad,  the 
first  and  strictest  rule  of  a  father  to  his  sons,  and  of  a 
master  to  his  pupils,  was  that  they  should  on  no 
account  and  for  no  object  read  anything  in  the  vulgar 
speech  (non  legesseno  cose  volgari,  per  dirlo  barbara- 
mente  come  lord);  and  Master  Guasparre  Mariscotti  da 
Marradi,  who  was  my  teacher  in  grammar,  a  man  of 
hard  and  rough  but  pure  and  excellent  manners, 
having  once  heard,  I  know  not  how,  that  Schiatta  di 
Bernardo  Bagnesi  and  I  were  wont  to  read  Petrarch 
on  the  sly,  gave  as  a  sound  rating  for  it,  and  nearly 
expelled  us  from  his  school."  Some  of  Varchi's  own 
stylistic  pedantries  may  be  attributed  to  this  Latinizing 
education. 

Even  when  they  wrote  their  mother  tongue,  it 
followed  that  the  men  of  humanistic  culture  had  a  false 
conception  of  style.  Alberti  could  not  abstain  from 
Latinistic  rhetoric.  Cristoforo  Landino  went  the 
length  of  asserting  that  "  he  who  would  fain  be  a  good 
Tuscan  writer,  must  first  be  a  Latin  scholar."  The 
Italian  of  familiar  correspondence  was  mingled  in 
almost  equal  quantities  with  Latin  phrases.  Thus 
Poliziano,  writing  from  Venice  to  Lorenzo  de'  Medici, 
employs  the  following  strange  maccaronic  jargon 2 : 

Visitai  stamattina  Messer  Zaccheria  Barbero;  e  mostrandoli  io  1' 
affezione  vostra  ec.,  mi  rispose  sempre  lagrimando,  et  ut  visum  est, 

>  Ercolano  (in  Vinetia,  Giunti,  1570),  p.  185. 

*  Prose  Volgari,  etc..  edite  da  I.  del  Lungo  (Firenze,  Barbara,  1867). 
p.  80. 


238  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

dc  cuore;  risolvendosi  in  questo,  in  te  uno  spem  esse.  Ostendit  sc 
nosse  quantum  tibi  debeat;  sicchft  fate  quello  ragionaste,  ut  favens 
ad  majora.  Quello  Legato  che  torna  da  Roma,  et  qui  tecum  locutus 
cst  Florentiae,  non  d  punto  a  loro  proposito,  ut  ajunt. 

Poliziano,  however,  showed  by  his  letters  to  the  ladies 
of  the  Medicean  family,  and  by  some  sermons  com- 
posed for  a  religious  brotherhood  of  which  he  was  a 
member,  that  he  had  no  difficulty  in  writing  Tuscan 
prose  of  the  best  quality.1  It  seems  to  have  been  a 
contemptuous  fashion  among  men  of  learning,  when 
they  used  the  mother  tongue  for  correspondence,  to 
load  it  with  Latin — just  as  a  German  of  the  age  of 
Frederick  proved  his  superiority  by  French  phrases. 
The  acme  of  this  affectation  was  reached  in  the  Hypne- 
rotdmachia,  where  the  vice  of  Latinism  sought  perpetua- 
tion through  the  printing  press.  Meanwhile,  the  genius 
of  the  Florentine  people  was  saving  Italian  literature 
from  the  extreme  consequences  to  which  caricatures  of 
this  kind,  inspired  by  humanistic  pedantry  and  sciolism, 
exposed  it. 

A  characteristic  incident  of  the  year  1441  brings 
before  us  a  set  of  men  who,  though  obscure  and 
devoted  to  the  service  of  the  common  folk,  exercised 
no  slight  influence  over  the  destinies  of  the  Italian 
language.  After  the  reinstatement  of  the  Medici,  and 
while  Alberti  was  resident  in  Florence,  it  occurred  to 
him  to  propose  the  prize  of  a  silver  crown  for  the 
best  poem  upon  Friendship,  in  the  vulgar  tongue. 
Piero  de'  Medici  approving  of  this  scheme,  it  was 
arranged  that  the  contest  for  the  prize  should  take 
place  in  S.  Maria  del  Fiore,  the  competitors  reciting 

1  Prose,  etc.,  op.  cit.  pp.  45  et.  seg.  pp.  3  et  seq. 


PLEBEIAN  LITERATURE.  239 

their  own  compositions.  The  secretaries  of  Pope 
Eugenius  IV.  consented  to  be  umpires.  Eight  poets 
entered  the  lists  —  Michele  di  Noferi  del  Gigante, 
Francesco  d'Altobianco  degli  Alberti,  and  six  others 
not  less  unknown  to  fame.  We  still  possess  their  com- 
positions in  octave  stanzas,  terza  rima,  sapphics,  hexa- 
meters and  lyric  strophes.1  The  poems  were  so  bad 
that  even  the  judges  of  that  period  refused  to  award 
the  crown;  nor  could  the  most  indulgent  student  of 
forgotten  literature  arraign  this  verdict  for  severity. 
Yet  the  men  who  engaged  in  Alberti's  Certamen  Caro- 
narium,  as  it  was  called,  fairly  represented  a  class  of 
literary  workers,  who  occupied  a  middle  place  between 
the  learned  and  the  laity,  and  on  whom  devolved  the 
task  of  writing  for  the  people. 

Since  that  unique  moment  in  the  history  of  Tuscan 
civilization  when  the  lyrics  of  Dante  and  Guido 
Cavalcanti  were  heard  upon  the  lips  of  blacksmiths, 
the  artisans  of  Florence  had  not  wholly  lost  their 
thirst  for  culture.  Style  and  erudition  retired  into  the 
schools  of  the  humanists  and  the  studies  of  the  nobles. 
But  this  curiosity  of  the  volgo,  as  Boccaccio  contempt- 
uously called  them,  was  satisfied  by  the  production 
of  a  vernacular  literature,  which  brought  the  ruder 

1  Alberti,  Op.  Volg.  vol.  i.  pp.  clxvii.-ccxxxiii.    The  qual.ty  of  these 
Latin  meters  may  be  judged  from  the  following  hexameters: 
Ma  non  prima  sar£  che  '1  Dato  la  musa  corona 
Invochi,  allora  subito  cantando  1*  avete, 
Tal  qual  si  gode  presso  il  celeste  Tonante. 

Ot  the  Sapphics  the  following  is  a  specimen: 

Eccomi,  i'  son  qui  Dea  degli  amid, 
Quella  qual  tutti  li  omini  solete 
Mordere,  e  falso  fugitiva  dirli, 

Or  la  volete. 


f  240  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITAL  Y. 

elements  of  knowledge  within  their  reach.  Mention  has 
already  been  made  of  Latini's  Tesoro  and  Tesoretto. 
Uberti's  Dittamondo  and  similar  encyclopaedic  works 
of  medieval  learning.  To  these  may  now  be  added 
Leonardo  Dati's  cosmographical  history  in  octave 
stanzas,  the  Schiavo  da  Bari's  aphorisms  on  morality, 
and  Pucci's  terza  rima  version  of  Villani's  Chronicle. 
Genealogical  poems  on  popes,  emperors  and  kings; 
episodes  from  national  Italian  history;  novels,  ro- 
mances and  tales  of  chivalry;  pious  biographies;  the 
rudiments  of  education,  from  the  Dottrinale  of  Jacopo 
Alighieri  down  to  Feo  Belcari's  ABC,  helped  to 
complete  the  handicraftsman's  library.  Further  to 
describe  this  plebeian  literature  is  hardly  necessary. 
The  authors  advanced  no  pretensions  to  artistic 
elegance  or  stateliness  of  style.  They  sought  to  ren- 
der knowledge  accessible  to  unlettered  readers,  or 
to  please  an  open-air  audience  with  stirring  and  ro- 
mantic narratives.  Their  language  broke  only  at  rare 
intervals  into  poetry  and  rhetoric,  when  the  subject- 
matter  forced  a  note  of  unaffected  feeling  from  the 
improvisatore.  Yet  it  has  always  the  merit  of  purity, 
and,  in  point  of  idiom,  is  superior  to  the  Latinistic 
periods  of  Alberti.  By  means  of  the  neglected  labors 
of  these  nameless  writers,  the  style  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  so  winning  in  its  infantine  grace,  was  grad- 
ually transformed  and  rendered  capable  of  stronger 
literary  utterance.  Those  who  have  studied  a  single 
prose- work  of  this  period — 1 Reali  di  Francia,  for  in- 
stance, or  Belcari's  Vita  del  Beato  Colombino,  or  the 
Governo  della  Famiglia  ascribed  to  Pandolfini — will  be 
convinced  that  a  real  progress  toward  grammatical 


POETRY  AND   FICTION.  241 

cohesion  and  massiveness  of  structure  was  made 
during  those  years  of  the  fifteenth  century  which  are 
usually  counted  barren  of  achievement  by  literary 
historians.  Italian  prose  had  entered  on  the  period  of 
adolescence,  leading  to  the  manhood  of  Machiavelli. 

The  popular  poetry  of  the  quattrocento  is  still 
more  interesting  than  its  prose.  No  period  of  Italian 
history  was  probably  more  fruitful  of  songs  poured 
forth  from  the  very  heart  of  the  people,  on  the  fields 
and  in  the  city.  The  music  of  these  lyrics  still  lingers 
about  the  Tuscan  highlands  and  the  shores  of  Sicily, 
where  much  that  now  passes  for  original  composition 
is  but  the  echo  of  most  ancient  melody  stored  in  the 
retentive  memory  of  peasants.  To  investigate  the 
several  species  of  this  poetry,  together  with  kindred 
works  of  prose  fiction,  under  the  several  classes  of  (i) 
epics  and  romances,  (ii)  histories  in  verse  and  satires, 
(iii)  love-poems,  (iv)  religious  lyrics,  and  (v)  dramas,  will 
be  my  object  in  the  present  and  the  following  chapters^ 
This  survey  of  popular  literature  forms  a  necessary 
introduction  to  the  renascence  which  was  simulta- 
neously effected  for  Italian  at  Florence,  Ferrara  and 
Naples  during  the  last  years  of  the  century.  The 
material  prepared  by  the  people  was  then  resumed 
and  artistically  elaborated  by  learned  authors. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  Italian  poetry  exhibits 
a  continual  reciprocity  of  exchange  between  the  culti- 
vated classes  and  the  proletariate.  In  this  respect  the 
literature  of  the  Italians  corresponds  to  their  fine  art. 
Taken  together  with  painting,  sculpture,  and  music,  it 
offers  a  more  complete  embodiment  of  the  national 
spirit  than  can  be  shown  by  any  other  modern  race. 


24*  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Dante's  Francesca  and  Count  Ugolino,  Ariosto's  golden 
cantos,  and  the  romantic  episodes  of  the  Gerusalemme 
are  known  by  heart  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  Peninsula.  The  people  have  appropriated 
these  masterpieces  of  finished  art.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  literary  poets  have  been  ever  careful  to  borrow 
subjects,  forms,  and  motives  from  the  populace.  The 
close  rapport  which  thus  connects  the  tastes  and  in- 
stincts of  the  proletariate  with  the  culture  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, is  rooted  in  peculiar  conditions  of  Italian 
society.  Traditions  of  a  very  ancient  civilization, 
derived  without  apparent  rupture  from  the  Roman  age, 
have  penetrated  and  refined  the  whole  nation.  From 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  the  Italians  are  born  with 
sensibility  to  beauty.  This  people  and  its  poets  live 
in  sympathy  so  vital  that,  though  their  mutual  good 
understanding  may  have  been  suspended  for  .short 
intervals,  it  has  never  been  broken.  The  vibrations 
of  intercourse  between  the  peasant  and  the  learned 
writer  are  incessant;  and  if  we  notice  some  inter- 
mittency  of  influence  on  one  side  or  the  other,  it  is 
only  because  at  one  epoch  the  destinies  of  the  national 
genius  were  committed  to  the  people,  at  another  to  the 
cultivated  classes.  In  the  fifteenth  century,  one  of 
these  temporary  ruptures  occurred.  The  Revival  of 
Learning  had  to  be  effected  by  an  isolation  of  the 
scholars.  Meanwhile,  the  people  carried  on  the  work 
of  literary  transmutation,  which  was  to  connect 
Boccaccio  with  Pulci  and  Poliziano.  Their  instinct 
rejected  all  elements  alien  to  the  national  tempera- 
ment. Out  of  the  many  models  bequeathed  by  the 
fourteenth  century,  only  those  which  suited  the  sen 


SPIRIT   OF  POPULAR    POETRY.  243 

suous  realism  of  the  Florentines  survived.  The  tradi- 
tions of  Ciullo  d'  Alcamo  and  Jacopone  da  Todi,  of 
Rustico  di  Filippo  and  Lapo  Gianni,  of  Folgore  da  S. 
Gemignano  and  Cene  dalla  Chitarra,  of  Cecco  Angio- 
lieri  and  Guido  Cavalcanti,  of  Boccaccio  and  Sacchetti, 
of  Ser  Giovanni  and  Alesso  Donati,  triumphed  over 
the  scholasticism  of  those  learned  poets — ''half  Pro- 
vengal  and  half  Latin,  half  chivalrous,  and  half  bour- 
geois, half  monastic  and  half  sensual,  half  aristocratic 
and  half  plebeian  " l — who  had  unsuccessfully  experi- 
mentalized in  the  dawn  of  Tuscan  culture.  The  arti- 
ficial chivalry,  lifeless  mysticism,  barren  metaphysics, 
and  hypocritical  piety  of  the  rhyming  doctors  were 
eliminated.  Common  sense  expressed  itself  in  a  reac- 
tion against  their  conventional  philosophy.  Giotto's 
blunt  critique  of  Franciscan  poverty,  Orcagna's  bur- 
lesque definition  of  Love,  not  as  a  blind  boy  with 
wings  and  arrows,  but  thus : 

L'  amore  fc  un  trastullo; 
Non  6  composto  di  legno  n6  d*  osso; 
E  a  molta  gente  fa  rompere  il  dosso: 

struck  the  keynote  of  the  new  literature.1  It  is  true 
that  much  was  sacrificed.  Both  Dante  and  Petrarch 
seemed  to  be  forgotten.  Yet  this  was  inevitable. 
Dante  represented  a  bygone  age  of  faith  and  reason. 
Petrarch's  humanity  was  too  exquisitely  veiled.  The 
Florentine  people  required  expression  more  simple 
and  direct,  movement  more  brusque,  emotion  of  a 
coarser  fiber.  Meanwhile  the  Divine  Comedy  and 

1  Carducci,  "Delia  Rime  di  Dante  Aligrhieri."  Studi,  p.  154. 

1  For  Giotto's  and  Orcagna's  poems,  seeTrucchi,  vol.  ii.  pp.  8  and  2$. 


»44  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

the    Canzoniere   were   the   inalienable    possessions   of 
the  nation.     They  had  already  taken  rank  as  classics. 

The  Italians  had  no  national  Epic,  if  we  except 
the  sEneid.  We  have  seen  how  the  romances  of 
Charlemagne  and  Arthur  were  imported  with  the 
languages  of  France  and  Provence  into  Northern 
Italy,  and  how  they  passed  into  the  national  litera- 
ture of  Lombardy  and  Tuscany.1  Both  cycles  were 
eminently  popular.  The  Tavola  Ritonda  ranks  among 
the  earliest  monuments  of  Tuscan  prose.2  The  Cento 
Novelle  contain  frequent  references  to  Merlin,  Lance- 
lot and  Tristram.  Folgore  da  S.  Gemignano  com- 
pares the  members  of  his  Joyous  Company  to  King 
Ban's  children.  In  the  Laberinto  d  Amore  Boccac- 
cio speaks  of  Arthurian  tales  as  the  favorite  studies 
of  idle  women,  and  Sacchetti  bids  his  blacksmith 
turn  from  Dante  to  legends  of  the  Round  Table. 
Yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  from  a  very  early  period 
the  Carolingian  cycle  gained  the  preference  of  the 
Italian  people.3  It  is  also  noticeable  that,  not  the 
main  legend  of  Roland,  but  the  episode  of  Rinaldo, 
and  other  offshoots  from  the  history  of  the  Prankish 
peers,  furnished  plebeian  poets  with  their  favorite 
material.4  MSS.  written  in  Venetian  and  Franco- 

'  See  above,  pp.  17  et  seq. 

*  The  Tavola  Ritonda  has  been  reprinted,  2  vols.,  Bologna,  Roma- 
gnoli,  1864.     It  corresponds  very  closely  in  material  to  our  Mart  d* Ar- 
thur, beginning  with  the  history  of  Uther  Pendragon  and  ending  with 
Arthur's  wound  and  departure  to  the  island  of  Morgan  le  Fay. 

3  See  above,  p.  18.  The  subject  of  these  romances  has  been  ably 
treated  by  Ho  Rajna  in  his  works,  I  Reali  di  Francia  (Bologna,  Roma- 
gnoli,  1872),  and  Le  Fonti  dell'  Orlando  Furioso  (Firenze,  Sansoni,  1876) 

*  The  Rinaldino,  a  prose  romance  recently  published   (Bologna, 
Romagnoli,  1865),  might  be  selected  as  a  thoroughly  Italian  fioritvru 
on  the  ancient  Carolingian  theme. 


THE    RE  A  LI   DI  FRANC/A. 


245 


Italian  dialects  before  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century  attest  to  the  popularity  of  these  subordinate 
romances,  and  reveal  an  independent  handling  of  the 
borrowed  subject.  In  form  they  do  not  diverge 
widely  from  French  originals.  Yet  there  is  one 
prominent  characteristic  which  distinguishes  the  Italian 
rifacimenti.  A  Christian  hero  falls  in  love  with  a 
pagan  heroine  on  pagan  soil.  His  pursuit  of  her, 
their  difficulties  and  adventures,  and  the  evangeli- 
zation of  her  people  by  the  knightly  lover,  furnish  a 
series  of  incidents  which  recur  with  singular  persis- 
tence.1 When  the  romances  in  question  had  been 
translated  into  Tuscan,  a  destiny  of  special  splendor 
was  reserved  for  two  of  them,  in  no  way  distinguished 
by  any  apparent  merit  above  the  rest.  These  were 
the  tales  of  Buovo  d'  Antona,  of  which  we  possess  an 
early  version  in  octave  stanzas,  and  of  Fioravante, 
which  exists  in  still  older  prose.  About  the  beginning 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  Buovo  and  the  Fioravante, 
together  with  other  material  drawn  from  the  Carolin- 
gian  epic,  were  combined  into  the  great  prose  work 
called  I Reali  di  Francia.'1  Since  its  first  appearance 
to  the  present  day,  this  romance  has  never  ceased  to 
be  the  most  widely  popular  of  all  books  written  in 
Italian.  "  There  is  nothing,"  says  Signer  Rajna,  "  so 
assiduously  read  from  the  Alps  to  the  furthest  head- 
lands of  Sicily.  Wherever  a  reader  exists,  there  is  it 
certain  to  be  found  in  honor."3  Not  the  earliest  but 

1  We  have  here  the  germ  of  the  Orlando  and  of  the  first  part  of  the 
Morgante. 

*  Rajna,  I  Reali,  p.  320,  fixes  the  date  of  its  composition  at  a  little 
before  1420. 

»  Ibid.  p.  3. 


246  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

the  latest  product  of  a  long  elaboration  of  romantic 
matter  by  the  people,  it  seems  to  have  assimilated  the 
very  essence  of  the  popular  imagination.  When  we 
inquire  into  its  authorship,  we  find  good  reason  to 
ascribe  it  to  Andrea  dei  Mangalotti  of  Barberino  in 
the  Val  d'  Elsa,  one  of  the  best  and  most  indefatigable 
workmen  for  the  literary  market  of  the  proletariate.1 
It  was  he  who  compiled  the  Aspromonte,  the  Aiolfo> 
the  seven  books  of  Storie  Nerbonesi,  the  Ugone 
d  Avernia,  and  the  Guerino  il  Meschino,  reducing  these 
tales  from  elder  poems  and  prose  sources  into  Tuscan 
of  sterling  lucidity  and  vigor,  and  attempting,  it 
would  seem,  to  embrace  the  whole  Carolingian  cycle 
in  a  series  of  episodical  romances.2  Guerino  il  Mes- 
chino  rivaled  for  a  while  the  Reali  in  popularity;  but 
for  some  unknown  reason,  which  would  have  to  be 
sought  in  the  instinctive  partialities  of  the  people,  it 
was  gradually  superseded  by  the  latter.  The  Reah 
alone  has  descended  in  its  original  form  through  the 
press  to  this  century.3 

Andrea  da  Barberino,  if  we  are  right  in  ascribing 
the  Reali  to  his  pen,  conferred  a  benefit  on  the  Italians 
parallel  to  that  which  the  English  owed  to  Sir  Thomas 
Mallory  in  his  "  Mort  d'  Arthur."  He  not  only  col- 
lected and  condensed  the  scattered  tales  of  numerous 
unknown  predecessors,  but  he  also  bequeathed  to 
the  nation  a  monument  of  unaffected  prose  at  a 

*  I  Reali,  pp.  311-319. 

*  The  Storie  Nerbonesi  were  published  in  two  vols.  (Bologna,  Roma- 
gnoli,  1877),  under  the  editorship  of  I.  G.  Isola.    The  third  volume  forms 
a  copious  philological  and  critical  appendix. 

*  Guerino  was  versified  in  octave  stanzas,  by  a  poet  of  the  people 
called  L'Altissimo,  in  the  sixteenth  century. 


ANDREA    DA    BARBERINO.  247 

moment  when  the  language  was  still  ingenuous  and 
plastic.  It  would  be  not  uninteresting  to  compare  the 
fate  of  the  Reali  with  that  of  our  own  "  Mort  d'  Arthur." 
The  latter  was  the  more  artistic  performance  of  the 
two.  It  achieved  a  truer  epical  unity,  and  was  com- 
posed in  a  richer,  more  romantic  style.  The  former 
remained  episodical  and  incomplete;  and  its  language, 
though  solid  and  efficient,  lacked  the  charm  of 
Mallory's  all  golden  prose.  Yet  the  Reali  is  still  a 
household  classic.  It  is  found  in  every  contadinos 
cottage,  and  supplies  the  peasantry  with  subjects  for 
their  Maggi.  The  "  Mort  d'  Arthur,"  on  the  contrary, 
has  become  the  plaything  of  medievalizing  folk  in 
modern  England.  Read  for  its  unique  beauty  by 
students,  it  is  still  unknown  to  the  people,  and,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  dull  majority,  it  is  reckoned  in- 
ferior to  Tennyson's  smooth  imitations. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  romantic  poems 
of  Pulci,  Boiardo,  and  Ariosto,  we  shall  be  able  to 
estimate  the  service  rendered  by  men  like  Andrea  da 
Barberino  to  polite  Italian  literature.  The  popularity 
of  the  cycle  to  which  the  Reali  belonged,  decided  the 
choice  of  the  Carolingian  epic  by  the  poets  of 
Florence  and  Ferrara.  Nor  were  the  above-mentioned 
romances  by  any  means  the  only  works  of  their  kind 
produced  for  a  plebeian  audience  in  the  quattrocento. 
It  is  enough  to  mention  La  Regina  Ancroja,  La 
Spagna,  Trebisonda  con  la  Vita  e  Morte  di  Rinaldo. 
Both  in  prose  and  verse  an  abundant  literature  of  the 
kind  was  manufactured.  Without  being  positively 
burlesqued,  the  heroes  of  chivalrous  story  were 
travestied  to  suit  the  taste  of  artisans  and  burghers. 


248  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

The  element  of  the  marvelous  was  surcharged ;  comic 
and  pathetic  episodes  were  multiplied;  beneath  the 
armor  of  the  Paladins  Italian  characters  were  substi- 
tuted with  spontaneous  malice  for  the  obsolete  ideals 
of  feudalism.  It  only  needed  a  touch  of  conscious 
irony  to  convert  the  material  thus  elaborated  by  the 
people  into  the  airy  fabric  of  Ariosto's  art.  At  the 
same  time  the  form  which  the  epic  of  romance  was 
destined  to  assume,  had  been  determined.  The  streets 
and  squares  of  town  and  village  rang  with  the  chants 
of  improvisatori,  turning  the  prose  periods  of  Andrea 
da  Barberino  and  his  predecessors  into  wordy  octave 
stanzas,  rehandling  ancient  Chansons  de  Geste,  and 
adapting  the  mannerism  of  chivalrous  minstrelsy  to 
the  requirements  of  a  subtle-witted  Tuscan  crowd. 
The  old-fashioned  invocations  of  God,  Madonna,  or 
some  saint  were  preserved  at  the  beginning  of  each 
canto,  while  the  audience  received  their  conge  from 
the  author  at  its  close.  When  the  poems  thus  pro- 
duced were  committed  to  writing,  the  plebeian  author 
feigned  at  least  the  inspiration  of  a  bard. 

While  the  traditions  of  medieval  song  were  thus 
preserved,  the  prose-romances  followed,  as  closely  as 
possible,  the  style  of  a  chronicle,  and  aimed  at  the 
verisimilitude  of  authentic  history.  The  Reali,  for 
example,  opens  with  this  sentence:  "Fuvvi  in  Roma 
un  santo  pastore  della  Chiesa,  che  aveva  nome  papy 
Silvestro."  The  Fioravante,  recently  edited  by  Signor 
Rajna,  begins:  "  Nel  tempo  che  Gostantino  imperadore 
regiea  &  mantenea  corte  in  Roma  grandissima." 
This  parade  of  historic  seriousness,  observed  by  the 
subsequent  romantic  poets,  contributed  in  no  small 


POSITIVE    TONE.  245 

measure  to  the  irony  at  which  they  aimed.  But  with 
the  story-tellers  of  the  quattrocento  it  was  no  mere 
affectation.  Like  their  predecessors  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  they  treated  legend  from  the  standpoint  of 
experience.  It  was  due  in  no  small  measure  to  this 
circumstance  that  the  Italian  prose  -  romances  are 
devoid  of  charm.  Nowhere  do  we  find  in  them  that 
magic  touch  of  poetry  which  makes  the  forests,  seas 
and  castles  of  the  "  Mort  d'  Arthur  "  enchanted  ground. 
Notwithstanding  all  their  extravagances,  they  remain 
positive  in  spirit,  presenting  the  material  of  fancy  in 
the  sober  garb  of  fact.  The  Italian  genius  lacked  a 
something  of  imaginative  potency  possessed  in  over- 
flowing measure  by  the  Northern  nations.  It  required 
the  stimulus  of  satire,  the  infusion  of  idyllic  sentiment, 
the  consciousness  of  art,  to  raise  the  romantic  epic  to 
the  height  it  reached  in  Ariosto.  Then,  and  not  till 
then,  when  the  matter  of  the  legend  had  become  the 
sport  of  the  aesthetic  sense,  were  the  inexhaustible 
riches  of  Italian  fancy,  dealing  delicately  and  humor- 
ously with  a  subject  which  could  no  longer  be  appre- 
hended seriously,  revealed  to  the  world  in  a  master- 
piece of  beauty.  But  that  work  of  consummate  art 
was  what  it  was,  by  reason  of  the  master's  wise  em- 
ployment of  a  style  transmitted  to  him  through  genera- 
tions of  plebeian  predecessors. 

The  same  positive  and  workmanly  method  is  dis- 
cernible in  the  versified  novelle  of  this  period.1  The 

1  See  I  Novelheri  Italiana  in  Verso  by  Giamb.  Passano  (Romagnoli, 
1868).  The  whole  Decameron  was  turned  into  octave  stanzas  by  V. 
Brugiantino,  and  published  by  Marcolini  at  Venice  in  1554.  Among 
Novelle  versified  for  popular  reading  may  be  cited,  Masetto  the  Gar- 
dener (Decatn.  Giorn  iii.  i),  Romeo  and  Juliet  (Verona,  1553),  //  Grjsso 


250  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

popular  poets   were   wont  to   recast    tales    from   th 
Decameron    and    other    sources    in    octave    stanza! 
Of  such  compositions  we  have  excellent  specimens  ii, 
Girolamo  Benivieni's  version  of  the  novel  of  Tancredi, 
and  in  an  anonymous  rhymed  paraphrase  of  Patient 
Grizzel.1     The  latter  is  especially  interesting  when  we 
compare   it   with   the   series   of  panels    attributed   to 
Pinturicchio  in  the  National  Gallery,  where  a  painter 
of  the  same  period  has  exercised  his  fancy  in  illustrat 
ing  the  legend  which   the  poet  versified.     Detachec 
episodes    of    semi -mythical    Florentine    history    weit 
similarly  treated.     Allusion  has  already  been  made  tt 
the  love-tale  of  Ippolito  and  Leonora,  attributed  01 
doubtful  grounds  to   Alberti.2     But   by  far   the   most 
beautiful  is  the  story  of  Ginevra  degli  Almieri,  told  in 
octave  stanzas  by  Agostino  Velletti.3     This  poem  has 
rare  value  as  a  genuine  product  of  the  plebeian  muse. 
The  heroine  Ginevra's  father  was  a  pork-butcher,  says 

Legnaiuolo  (by  B.  Davanzati,  Florence,  1480),  Prasildo  and  Lisbina 
(from  the  Orlando  Innamorato),  Oliva,  Fiorio  e  Biancifiore  (the  tale 
of  the  Filocopd).  Of  classical  tales  we  find  Sesto  Tarquinio  et  Lucretia, 
Orpheo,  Perseo,  Piramo,  Giasone  e  Medea. 

1  Tancredi  Principe  di  Salerno,  Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1863.  II 
Marchese  di  Saluzzo  e  la  Griselda,  Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1862. 

*  See  above,  p.  212.  The  literary  hesitations  of  an  age  as  yet  un- 
certain of  its  aim  might  be  illustrated  from  these  romances.  Of  Ippolito 
e  Leonora  we  have  a  prose,  an  ottava  rima,  and  a  Latin  version.  Ot 
Griselda  we  have  Boccaccio's  Italian,  and  Petrarch's  Latin  prose,  in 
addition  to  the  anonymous  ottava  rima  version.  Of  the  Principe  di 
Salerno  we  have  Boccaccio's  Italian,  and  Lionardo  Bruni's  Latin  versions 
in  prose,  together  with  Filippo  Beroaldo's  Latin  elegiacs,  Francesco  di 
Michele  Accolti's  terza  rima  and  Benivieni's  octave  stanzas.  Lami  in 
his  Novelle  letterarie  (Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1859)  prints  an  Italian 
novella  on  the  same  story,  which  he  judges  anterior  to  the  Decameron. 
Later  on,  Annibal  Guasco  produced  another  ottava  rima  version;  and 
the  tale  was  used  by  several  playwrights  in  the  composition  of  tragedies. 

»  La  Storia  di  Ginevra  Almieri  c he  fu  sepolta  viva  in  Firenze 
(Pisa,  Nistri.  1863). 


GINEVRA    DEC  LI  ALMIERI.  251 

the  minstrel,  and  lived  in  the  Marcato  Vecchio,  where 
he  carried  on  the  best  business  of  the  sort  in  Florence. 
It  is  also  important  for  students  of  comparative  litera- 
ture, because  it  clearly  illustrates  the  difference  between 
Italian  and  Northern  treatment  of  an  all  but  contem- 
porary incident.  The  events  narrated  are  supposed  to 
have  really  happened  in  the  year  1396.  On  the 
Scotch  Border  they  would  have  furnished  materials  for 
a  ballad  similar  to  Gil  Morrice  or  Clerk  Saunders.  In 
Florence  they  take  the  form  of  a  novella,  and  the 
novella  is  expanded  in  octave  stanzas.1  Ginevra  had 
two  lovers,  Antonio  de'  Rondinelli  and  Francesco 
degli  Agolanti.  Antonio  loved  her  the  more  tenderly; 
but  her  parents  gave  her  in  marriage  to  Francesco. 
Soon  after  the  ceremony,  she  sickened  and  fell  into  a 
trance;  and  since  Florence  was  then  threatened  with 
the  plague,  the  girl  was  buried  over-hastily  in  this 
deep  slumber.  Her  weeping  parents  laid  her  in  a 
cippus  or  avello  between  the  two  doors  of  S.  Reparata, 
where  the  workmen,  unable  to  finish  their  job  before 
sunset,  left  the  lid  of  her  sepulcher  unsoldered.  In  the 
middle  of  the  night  Ginevra  woke,  and  discovered 
to  her  horror  that  she  had  been  sent  to  the  grave 
alive.  Happily  the  moon  was  shining,  and  a  ray  of 
light  fell  through  a  chink  upon  her  bier.  She  arose, 
wrapped  her  shroud  around  her,  and  struggled  from 
her  marble  chest  into  the  silent  cathedral  square. 
Giotto's  bell  tower  rose  above  her,  silvery  and  beau- 
tiful, and  slender  in  the  moonlight.  Like  a  ghost, 

>  The  same  point  is  illustrated  by  the  tales  of  the  Marchese  di  Saluzzo 
and  the  Principe  di  Salerno,  which  produced  the  novels  of  Griselda  and 
Tancredi.  See  notes  to  p.  250,  above. 


252  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

sheeted  in  her  grave-clothes,  Ginevra  ran  through  the 
streets,  and  knocked  first  at  Francesco's  door.  He 
was  seated  awake  by  the  fireside,  sorrowing  for  his 
young  bride's  loss : 

Andonne  alia  finestra  c  aprilla  un  poco: 

Chi  6  la  ?    Chi  batte  ?    lo  son  la  tua  Ginevra; 

Non  m'  odi  tu  ?    Col  suo  parlar  persevera. 

Her  husband  doubts  not  that  it  is  a  spirit  calling  to 
him,  bids  her  rest  till  masses  shall  be  said  for  her  re- 
pose, and  shuts  the  window.  Then  she  turns  to  her 
mother's  house.  The  mother,  too,  is  sitting  sorrowful 
by  the  hearth,  when  she  is  startled  by  Ginevra's 
cry: 

£  spaventata  e  piena  di  paura 
Disse:  va  in  pace,  anima  benedetta, 
Bella  figliuola  mia,  onesta  e  pura; 
E  riserro  la  finestra  con  fretta. 

Rejected  by  husband  and  mother,  Ginevra  next  tries 
her  uncle,  and  calls  on  him  for  succor  in  God's 
name: 

Fugli  risposto;  anima  benedetta, 
Va  che  Dio  ti  conservi  in  santa  pace. 

The  poor  wretch  now  feels  that  there  is  nothing  left 
for  her  but  to  lie  down  on  the  pavement  and  die  of 
cold.  But  while  she  is  preparing  herself  for  this  fate, 
she  bethinks  her  of  Antonio.  To  his  house  she  hur- 
ries, cries  for  aid,  and  falls  exhausted  on  the  doorstep. 
Then  comes  the  finest  touch  in  the  poem.  Antonio 
knows  Ginevra's  voice ;  and  loving  her  so  tenderly,  he 
hurries  with  delight  to  greet  her  risen  from  the  grave. 
He  alone  has  no  fear  and  no  misgiving;  for  love  in 
him  is  stronger  than  death.  At  the  street  door,  when 


IL    GRASSO. 


253 


he  reaches  it,  he  finds  no  ghost,  but  his  own  dear  lady 
yet  alive.  She  is  half  frozen  and  unconscious;  yet 
her  heart  still  beats.  How  he  calls  the  women  of  his 
household  to  attend  her,  prepares  a  bed,  and  feeds  her 
with  warm  soups  and  wine,  and  how  she  revives,  and 
how  Antonio  claims  her  for  his  wife,  and  wins  his  cause 
against  her  former  bridegroom  in  the  Bishop's  court, 
may  be  read  at  length  in  the  concluding  portion  of  the 
tale.  The  intrinsic  pathos  of  this  story  makes  it  a  real 
poem;  for  though  the  wizard's  wand  of  Northern  im- 
agination lay  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  Italian  genius, 
the  novelle  are  rarely  deficient  in  poetry  evoked  by 
sympathy  with  injured  innocence  and  loyal  love. 

Of  truly  popular  novelle  belonging  to  the  fifteenth 
century,  none  is  racier  or  more  characteristic  than  the 
anonymous  tale  of  II  Grasso,  Legnaiuolol  It  is 
written  in  pure  Florentine  dialect,  and  might  be 
selected  as  the  finest  extant  specimen  of  homespun 
Tuscan  humor.  We  have  already  seen  that  the 
point  of  Sacchetti's  stories  is  nearly  always  a  prac- 
tical joke,  where  comedy  combines  with  heartless 
cruelty  in  almost  equal  parts.  The  theme  of  // 
Grasso  is  a  superlatively  comic  beffa  of  this  sort, 
played  by  Filippo  Brunelleschi  on  a  friend  of  his. 
The  incident  is  dated  1409,  and  is  supposed  to  have 
really  occurred.  Manetto  Ammannatini,  a  tarsiatore 
or  worker  in  carved  and  inlaid  wood,  was  called  U 
Grasso,  because  he  was  a  fine  stout  fellow  of  twenty- 
eight  years.  He  had  his  bottega  on  the  Piazza  S. 
Giovanni  and  lived  with  his  brother  in  a  house  hard 
by.  Among  his  most  intimate  associates  were  Filippo 
1  Raccolta  dei  Nuvellieri  Italiani,  vol.  xiii. 


254  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

di  Ser  Brunellesco,  Donatello,  intagliatore  di 
Giovanni  di  Messer  Francesco  Rucellai,  and  others, 
partly  gentlemen  and  partly  handicraftsmen;  for  there 
was  no  abrupt  division  of  classes  at  Florence,  and  this 
story  shows  how  artisans  and  men  of  high  condition 
dwelt  together  in  good  fellowship.  The  practical  joke 
devised  by  Brunelleschi  consisted  in  persuading  Man- 
etto  that  he  had  been  changed  into  a  certain  Matteo. 
The  whole  society  of  friends  were  in  the  secret,  and 
the  affair  was  so  cunningly  conducted  that  at  last  they 
attained  the  desired  object.  They  caused  Manetto  to 
be  arrested  for  a  debt  of  Matteo,  sent  Matteo's  brothers 
and  then  the  clergyman  of  the  parish  to  reason  with 
him  on  his  spendthrift  habits,  and  fooled  him  so  that 
he  fairly  lost  his  sense  of  identity.  The  whole  series 
of  incidents,  beginning  with  Manetto's  indignant  asser- 
tion of  his  proper  personality,  passing  through  his 
doubts,  and  closing  with  his  mystification,  is  conducted 
by  fine  gradations  of  irresistibly  comic  humor.  At  last 
the  poor  man  resolves  to  quit  Florence  and  to  seek 
refuge  with  King  Mathias  Corvinus  in  Hungary;  which 
it  seems  he  subsequently  did,  in  company  with  a  cer- 
tain Lo  Spano.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
this  practical  joke  did  not  actually  take  place. 

I  have  enlarged  upon  the  novella  of  H  Grasso,  be- 
cause it  is  typical  of  the  genuinely  popular  literature, 
written  to  delight  the  folk  of  Florence,  appealing  to 
their  subtlest  as  well  as  broadest  sense  of  fun,  and 
bringing  on  the  scene  two  famous  artists,  Brunelleschi, 
whose  cupola  is  "  raised  above  the  heavens,"  and  Dona- 
tello, whose  S.  George  seems  stepping  from  his  pedes- 
tal to  challenge  all  the  evil  of  the  world  and  conquer 


STORIES    AND   LAMENTS.  255 

it.  Unfortunately,  our  published  collections  are  not 
rich  in  novels  of  this  date;  and  next  to  the  anony- 
mous tale  of  //  Grasso,  Legnaiuolo  it  is  difficult  to  cite 
one  of  at  all  equal  value,  till  we  come  to  Luigi  Pulci's 
story  of  Messer  Goro  and  Pius  II.  This  is  really  a 
satire  on  the  Sienese,  whom  Pulci  represents  with 
Florentine  malice  as  almost  inconceivably  silly.  The 
Tuscan  style  is  piquant  in  the  extreme,  and  the  picture 
of  manners  very  brilliant.1 

From  epical  and  narrative  literature  to  poems 
written  for  the  people  upon  contemporary  events  and 
public  history,  is  not  an  unnatural  transition.  These 
compositions  divide  themselves  into  Storie  and  La- 
menti.  We  have  abundant  examples  of  both  kinds  in 
lyric  measures  and  also  in  octave  stanzas  and  terza 
rima?  A  few  of  their  titles  will  suffice  to  indicate 
their  scope.  II  Lamento  di  Giuliano  de'  Medici  relates 
the  tragic  ending  of  the  Pazzi  conspiracy;  II  Lamento 
del  Duca  Galeazzo  Maria  tells  how  that  Duke  was 
murdered  in  the  church  of  S.  Stefano  at  Milan;  El 
Lamento  di  Otranto  is  an  echo  of  the  disaster  which 
shook  all  Italy  to  her  foundations  in  the  year  1480; 
El  Lamento  e  la  Discordia  de  Italia  universale  sounds 
the  death-note  of  Italian  freedom  in  the  last  years  of 
the  century.  After  that  period  the  Pianti  and  La- 
menti,  attesting  to  the  sorrows  of  a  nation,  increase  in 
frequency  until  all  voices  from  the  people  are  hushed 

1  Op.  tit.  vol.  xiii.  An  allusion  to  Masuccio  in  this  novel  is  interest- 
ing, since  it  proves  the  influence  he  had  acquired  even  in  Florence: 
"Masuccio,  grande  onore  della  cittk  di  Salerno,  molto  imitatore  del  nostro 
messer  Giovanni  Boccaccio,"  ib.  p.  34.  Pulci  goes  on  to  say  that  the 
reading  of  the  Novellino  had  encouraged  him  to  write  his  tale. 

1  See  D'Ancona,  La  Poesia  Popolare  Italiana,  pp.  64-79. 


256  RENAISSANCE    IN    ITALY. 

in  the  leaden  sleep  of  Spanish  despotism.1  The  Storie 
in  like  manner  are  more  abundant  between  the  years 
1494  and  1530,  when  the  wars  of  foreign  invaders 
supplied  the  bards  of  the  market-place  with  continual 
matter  for  improvisation.  Among  the  earliest  may 
be  mentioned  two  poems  on  the  Battle  of  Anghiari 
and  the  taking  of  Serezana.2  Then  the  list  proceeds 
with  the  tale  of  the  Borgias,  Guerre  Orrende,  Rotta  di 
Ravenna,  Malideportamentide  Franciosifato  in  Italia, 
and  so  forth,  till  it  ends  with  La  Presa  di  Roma  and 
Rotta  di  Ferruccio.  A  last  echo  of  these  Storie  and 
Lamenti — for  alas!  in  Italy  of  the  sixteenth  century 
history  and  lamentation  were  all  one — still  sounds 
about  the  hillsides  of  Siena3: 

O  Piero  Strozzi,  'ndd  sono  i  tuoi  bravoni  ? 

Al  Poggio  delle  Donne  in  que*  burronl. 
O  Piero  Strozzi,  'ndti  sono  i  tuoi  soldati  ? 

Al  Poggio  delle  Donne  in  quei  fossati. 
O  Piero  Strozzi,  'ndti  son  le  tue  genti  ? 

Al  Poggio  delle  Donne  a  cdr  le  lenti. 

It  may  be  well  to  say  how  these  poems  reached 
the  people,  before  they  were  committed  to  writing  or 
the  press.  There  existed  a  professional  class  of 
rhymsters,  usually  blind  men,  if  we  may  judge  by 
the  frequent  affix  of  Cieco  to  their  names,  who  tuned 
their  guitar  in  the  streets,  and  when  a  crowd  had 
gathered  round  them,  broke  into  some  legend  of 

1  A  fine  example  of  these  later  Lamenti  has  been  republished  at  Bologna 
by  Romagnoli,  1864.  It  is  the  Lamento  di  Fiorenza  upon  the  siege  and 
slavery  of  1529-30. 

•  A  medieval  specimen  of  this  species  of  composition  is  the  Ballata 
for  the  Reali  di  Napoli  in  the  defeat  of  Montecatini.     See  Carducci's 
Cino  e  Altri,  p.  603. 

*  D'Ancona,  op.  cit.  p.  78. 


STREET  SINGERS.  257 

romance,  or  told  a  tale  of  national  misfortune.  The 
Italian  designation  of  these  minstrels  is  Cantatore  in 
Banco,  or  Cantore  di  piazza.  In  the  high  tide  of 
Florentine  freedom  the  Cantore  di  piazza  exercised  a 
noble  calling;  for  through  his  verse  the  voice  of  the 
common  folk  made  itself  heard  beneath  the  very  win- 
dows of  the  Signoria.  In  1342,  when  the  war  with 
Pisa  turned  against  the  Florentines  owing  to  the  in- 
competence of  their  generals,  Antonio  Pucci,  who  was 
the  most  celebrated  Cantatore  of  the  day,  took  his 
lute  and  placed  himself  upon  the  steps  beneath  the 
Palazzo,  and  having  invoked  the  Virgin  Mary,  struck 
up  a  Sermintese  on  the  duty  of  making  peace l : 

Signor,  pognam  ch'  i'  sia  di  vil  nascenra, 
I'  pur  nacqui  nel  corpo  di  Firenza, 
Come  qua!  c'  e  di  pid  sofficienza: 

Onde  1  mi  duole 

Di  lei,  considerando  che  esser  suole 
Tenuta  pid  che  madre  da  figliuole; 
Oggi  ogni  bestia  soggiogar  la  vuole 
£  occuparc. 

Other  poems  of  the  same  kind  by  Antonio  Pucci  belong 
to  the  year  1346,  or  celebrate  the  purchase  of  Lucca 
from  Mastino  della  Scala,  or  the  victory  of  Messer 
Piero  Rosso  at  Padua,  or  the  expulsion  of  the  Duke 
of  Athens  from  Florence  in  1348.  It  must  not  be  sup- 
posed that  the  Cantatori  in  Banca  of  the  next  century 

•  Sermintese  Storico  di  A.  Pucci.  Livorno,  Vigo,  1876.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  Dante  in  the  Vita  Nuova  (section  vi.)  says  he  composed 
a  Strventese  on  sixty  ladies  of  Florence,  The  name  was  derived  from 
Provence,  and  altered  into  Strmintese  by  the  Florentines.  We  possess 
a  poem  of  this  sort  by  A.  Pucci  on  the  Florentine  ladies,  printed  by 
D'  Ancona  in  his  edition  of  the  Vita  Nuova  (Pisa,  Nistri,  p.  71),  together 
with  a  valuable  discourse  upon  this  form  of  poetry.  Carducci  in  his  Cino 
9  Altri  prints  two  Scrmintesi  by  Pucci  on  the  beauties  of  women. 


258  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

enjoyed  so  much  liberty  of  censure  or  had  so  high  a 
sense  of  their  vocation  as  Antonio  Pucci.  Yet  the 
people  made  their  opinions  freely  heard  in  rhymes 
sung  even  by  the  children  through  the  streets,  as 
when  they  angered  Martin  V.  in  1420  by  crying 
beneath  his  very  windows l : 

Papa  Martino,  Signor  di  Piombino, 
Conte  de  Urbino,  non  vale  un  quattrino. 

During  the  ascendency  of  Savonarola  and  the  party  - 
struggles  of  the  Medici  the  rival  cries  of  Palle  and 
Viva  Cristo  Kb  were  turned  into  street  songs 2 ;  but 
at  last,  after  the  siege  and  the  victory  of  Clement, 
the  voice  of  the  people  was  finally  stifled  by  au- 
thority.3 

The  element  of  satire  in  these  ditties  of  the  people 
leads  me  to  speak  of  one  very  prominent  poet  of 
the  fifteenth  century — Domenico  di  Giovanni,  called 
II  Burchiello,  the  rhyming  barber.4  He  was  born 

1  D'Ancona,  Poesia  Popolare  Italiana,  pp.  47-50,  has  collected  from 
Leonardo  Bruno  and  other  sources  many  interesting  facts  about  Pope 
Martin's  anger  at  this  ditty.  He  seems  to  have  gone  to  the  length  of 
putting  Florence  under  an  interdict. 

•  D'Ancona,  op.  cit.  pp.  51-56. 

»  One  of  the  last  plebeian  rhymes  on  politics  comes  from  Siena, 
where,  in  the  year  1552,  the  people  used  to  sing  this  couplet  in  derision 
of  the  Cardinal  of  the  Mignanelli  family  sent  to  rule  them: 

Mignanello,  Mignanello, 

Non  ci  piace  il  tuo  modello. 

See  Benci's  Storia  di  Montepukiano  (Fiorenza,  Massi  e  Landi,  164.1), 
p.  104.  An  anecdote  from  Busini  (Lettere  al  Varchi,  Firenze,  Le  Mon- 
nier,  p.  220)  is  so  characteristic  of  the  popular  temper  under  the  oppres- 
sion of  Spanish  tyranny  that  its  indecency  may  be  excused.  He  says 
that  a  law  had  been  passed  awarding,  "  quattro  tratti  di  corda  ad  uno 

che,  tirando  una  c disse:  Poi  che  non  si  pu6  parlare  con  la 

bocca,  io  parlerb  col  c " 

«  See  the  work  entitled  Sulle  Poesie  Toscane  di  Domenico 
chiello  nel  secolo  xv,  G.  Gargani,  Firenze,  Tip.  Cenn.  1877. 


IL    BURCHIELLO.  259 

probably  in  1403  at  Florence,  where  his  father,  who 
was  a  Pisan,  had  acquired  the  rights  of  citizenship  and 
followed  the  trade  of  a  barber.  Their  shop  was 
situated  in  Calimala,  and  formed  a  meeting-place  for 
the  wits,  who  carried  Burchiello's  verses  over  the 
town.  The  boy  seems  to  have  studied  at  Pisa,  and 
acquired  some  slight  knowledge  of  medicine.1  At 
the  age  of  four-and-twenty  we  find  him  married,  with 
three  children  and  no  property.2  Soon  after  this 
date,  he  separated  from  his  wife ;  or  else  she  left  him 
on  account  of  his  irregular  and  dissolute  habits.  Peer- 
ing through  the  obscurity  of  his  somewhat  sordid 
history,  we  see  him  getting  into  trouble  v/ith  the 
Inquisition  on  account  of  profane  speech,  and  then 
espousing  the  cause  of  the  Albizzi  against  the  Medi- 
cean  faction.  On  the  return  of  Cosimo  de'  Medici  in 
1434,  Burchiello  was  obliged  to  leave  Florence.  He 
settled  at  Siena,  and  opened  a  shop  in  the  Corso  di 
Camollia,  hoping  to  attract  the  Florentines  whose 
business  brought  them  to  that  quarter.  Here  he 
nearly  ruined  his  health  by  debauchery,  and  narrowly 
escaped  assassination  at  the  hands  of  a  certain  Ser 
Rosello.3  Leaving  Siena  about  1440,  Burchiello 
spent  the  last  years  of  his  life  in  wandering  through  the 
cities  of  Italy.  We  hear  of  him  at  Venice  entertained 
by  one  of  the  Alberti  family,  then  at  Naples,  finally  in 

1  Intendi  a  me,  che  gi«t  studiai  a  Pisa, 

E  ogni  mal  conosco  senza  signo. 

Sonetti  del  Burchiello,  del  Dellincioni,  e  d'  altri,  1757,  Londra,  p.  125. 
See,  too,  the  whole  sonnet  Son  medico  in  volgar. 

3  Gargani,  op.  cit.  p.  23,  extract  from  the  Catasto,  1427:  "  Domeni- 
cho  di  Giovanni  barbiere  non  ha  nulla." 

3  The  parallel  between  these  passages  of  Burchiello's  life  afnd  Filel 
io's  at  the  same  period  is  singular.     See  Revival  of  Learning,  p.  275. 


260  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Rome,  where  he  died  in  1448,  poisoned  probably  by 
Robert,  a  bastard  of  Pandolfo  Sigismondo  Malatesta, 
at  the  instigation  of  his  ancient  enemy,  Cosimo  de' 
Medici. l  Such  long  arms  and  such  retentive  memory 
had  the  merchant  despot. 

Burchiello's  sonnets  were  collected  some  thirty 
years  after  his  death  and  published  simultaneously  at 
various  places. 2  They  owed  their  popularity  partly  to 
their  political  subject-matter,  but  more  to  their  strange 
humor.  A  foreigner  can  scarcely  understand  their 
language,  far  less  appreciate  their  fun;  for  not  only 
are  they  composed  in  Florentine  slang  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  but  this  slang  itself  consists  of  detached 
phrases  and  burlesque  allusions,  chipped  as  it  were 
from  current  speech,  broken  into  splinters,  and  then 
wrought  into  a  grotesque  mosaic.  That  Burchiello 
had  the  merit  of  originality,  and  that  he  caught  the 
very  note  of  plebeian  Utterance,  is  manifest  from  the 
numerous  editions  and  imitations  of  his  sonnets.3  His 
Muse  was  a  volgivaga  Venus  bred  among  the  taverns 
and  low  haunts  of  vulgar  company,  whose  biting  wit 
introduced  her  to  the  society  of  the  learned.  Yet  her 
utterances,  at  this  distance  of  time,  are  so  obscure  and 
their  point  has  been  so  blunted  that  to  profess  an 
admiration  for  Burchiello  savors  of  literary  affecta- 
tion.4 He  was  a  poet  of  the  transition;  and  the 

1  Gargani,  op.  cit.  p.  90. 

8  The  best  edition  bears  the  date  Londra,  1757. 

»  The  edition  cited  above  includes  Sonetti  alia  Burchiellesca  by  a 
variety  of  writers.  The  strange  book  called  Pataffio,  which  used  to  be 
ascribed  to  Brunette  Latini,  seems  born  of  similar  conditions. 

4  Florentines  themselves  take  this  view,  as  is  proved  by  the  following 
sentence  from  Capponi:  "£  pure  qui  obbligo  di  registrare  anche  il  Bur- 
chiello, barbiere  di  nome  rimasto  famoso,  perche  fece  d*  un  certo  suo 


POPULAR    LYRICS.  26 1 

burlesque  style  which  he  made  popular  was  destined 
to  be  superseded  by  the  more  refined  and  subtle 
Bernesque  manner.  II  Lasca,  writing  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  expressed  himself  strongly  against  those  who 
still  ventured  to  compare  Burchiello  with  the  author 
of  Le  Pesche.  "  Let  no  one  talk  to  me  of  Burchiello ; 
to  rank  him  with  Burni  is  no  better  than  to  couple 
the  fiend  Charon  with  the  Angel  Gabriel."1 

Not  the  least  important  branch  of  popular  poetry 
in  its  bearing  on  the  future  of  Italian  literature  was 
the  strictly  lyrical.  In  treating  of  these  Volkslieder, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  them  under  the  two 
aspects  of  secular  and  religious — the  former  destined 
to  supply  Poliziano  and  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  with 
models  for  their  purest  works  of  literary  art,  the  latter 
containing  the  germs  of  the  Florentine  Sacred  Play 
within  the  strophes  of  a  hymn. 

If  we  return  to  the  golden  days  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  we  find  that  Dante's,  Boccaccio's  and  Sac- 
chetti's  Ballate  descended  to  the  people  and  were 
easily  adapted  to  their  needs.2  Minute  comparison 
of  Dante's  dance-song  of  the  Ghirlandetta  with  the 
version  in  use  among  the  common  folk  will  show  what 
slight  alterations  were  needed  in  order  to  render  it  the 

gergo  poesia  forse  arguta  ma  triviale;  oscura  oggi,  ma  popolare  nei  tempi 
suoi  e  che  ebbe  inclusive  imitatori "  (Storia  della  Rep.  di  Firenze,  ii.  176). 

1  See  the  Sonnet  quoted  in  Note  59  to  Mazzuchelli's  Life  of  Berni, 
Scrittori  d'  Italia,  vol.  iv. 

*  The  Ballata  or  Canzone  a  Ballo,  as  its  name  implies,  was  a  poem 
intended  to  be  sung  during  the  dance.  A  musician  played  the  lute  while 
young  women  executed  the  movements  of  the  Carola  (so  beautifully  de- 
picted by  Benozzo  Gozzoli  in  his  Pisan  frescoes),  alone  or  in  the  company 
of  young  men,  singing  the  words  of  the  song.  The  Ballata  consisted  of 
lyric  stanzas  with  a  recurrent  couplet.  It  is  difficult  to  distinguish  the 
Ballate  from  the  Canzonette  d'  Amore. 


262  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

property  of  'prentice  lads  and  spinning  maidens,  and 
at  the  same  time  how  subtle  those  changes  were.1 
Dante's  song  might  be  likened  to  a  florin  fresh  from 
the  mint;  the  popular  ditty  to  the  same  coin  after  it 
had  circulated  for  a  year  or  two,  exchanging  something 
of  its  sharp  lines  for  the  smoothness  of  currency  and 
usage.  The  same  is  true  of  Boccaccio's  Ballata,  fl  fior 
che  7  valor  perde;  except  that  here  the  transformation 
has  gone  deeper,  and,  if  such  a  criticism  may  be 
hazarded,  has  bettered  the  original  by  rendering  the 
sentiment  more  universal.2  Sacchetti's  charming  song 
O  vaghe  montanine  pasturelle  underwent  the  same 
process  of  metamorphosis  before  it  assumed  the  form 
in  which  it  passed  for  a  composition  of  Poliziano.3 
Starting  with  poems  of  this  quality,  the  rhymsters  of 
the  market-place  had  noble  models,  and  the  use  they 
made  of  them  was  adequate.  We  cannot  from  the 
wreck  of  time  recover  very  many  that  were  absolutely 
written  for  the  people  by  the  people;  but  we  can 
judge  of  their  quality  by  Angelo  Poliziano's  imitations.4 
He  borrowed  so  largely  from  all  sources,  and  his  debts 
can  be  so  accurately  traced  in  his  rispetti,  that  it  is  fair 
to  credit  the  popular  Muse  with  even  such  delicate  work 
as  La  Brunettina,  while  the  disputed  authorship  of 
the  May-song  Ben  venga  Maggio  and  of  the  Ballata 
Vaghe  le  montanine  e  pastorelle  is  sufficient  to  prove 
at  least  their  widespread  fame.6  Whoever  wrote  them, 

»  See  Carducci,  Cantilene  e  Ballate  (Pisa,  1871),  pp.  82,  83. 
»  Ibid.  pp.  171-173. 
a  Ibid.  pp.  214-217. 

*  A  volume  of  ancient  Canxoni  a  Ballo  was  published  at  Florence 
in  1562,  by  Sermatelli,  and  again  in  1568. 

6  Le  Rime  di  Me*ser  A.  Poliziano,  pp.  295,  346. 


DANCE    AND    LOVE    SONGS.  36$ 

they  became  the  heirlooms  of  the  people.  If  proof 
were  needed  of  the  vast  number  of  such  compositions 
in  the  fifteenth  century — erotic,  humorous,  and  not 
unfrequently  obscene — it  might  be  derived  from  the 
rubrics  of  the  Laude  or  hymns,  which  were  almost 
invariably  parodies  of  popular  dance-songs  and  in- 
tended to  be  sung  to  the  same  tunes.1  Every  festivity 
— May-morning  tournaments,  summer  evening  dances 
on  the  squares  of  Florence,  weddings,  carnival  proces- 
sions, and  vintage-banquets  at  the  villa — had  their  own 
lyrics,  accompanied  with  music  and  the  Carola. 

The  dance-songs  and  canzonets,  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking,  were  chiefly  of  town  growth  and 
Tuscan.  Another  kind  of  popular  love-poem,  com- 
mon to  all  the  dialects  of  Italy,  may  be  regarded  as  a 
special  production  of  the  country.  Much  has  lately 
been  written  concerning  these  Rispetti,  Strambotti  and 
Stornelli?  Ample  collections  have  been  made  to 

1  See  Laude  Spirituali  di  Feo  Belcari  e  di  Altri,  Firenze,  1863.  The 
hymn  Crocifisso  a  capo  chino,  for  example,  has  this  heading:  "  Cantasi 
come — Una  donna  d'  amor  fino,"  which  was  by  no  means  a  moral  song 
(ib.  p.  16).  D'  Ancona  in  his  Poesia  Pop.  It.  pp.  431-436,  has  extracted 
the  titles  of  these  profane  songs,  some  of  which  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Canzoni  a  Ballo  (Firenze,  1568),  and  Canti  Carnascialeschi  (Cosmo- 
poli,  1750),  while  the  majority  are  lost. 

4  The  books  which  I  have  consulted  on  this  branch  of  vernaculat 
poetry  are  (i)  Tommaseo,  Canti popolari  toscani,  corsi,  illirici  e  greci, 
Venezia,  1841.  (2)  Tigri,  Canti  popolari  to  scani,  Firenze,  1869.  (3)  Pitrd, 
Canti  popolari  siciliani,  and  Studi  di  poesia  popolare,  Palermo,  1870- 
1872.  (4)  D'  Ancona,  La  Poesia  popolare  italiana,  Livorno,  1878.  (5) 
Rubieri,  Storia  della  poesia  popolare  italiana,  Firenze,  1877.  Also 
numerous  collections  of  local  songs,  of  which  a  good  list  is  furnished  in 
D'  Ancona's  work  just  cited.  Bolza's  edition  of  Comasque  poetry,  Dal 
Medico's  of  Venetian,  Ferraro's  of  Canti  Monferrini  (district  of  Mont- 
ferrat),  Vigo's  of  Sicilian,  together  with  Imbriani's  of  Southern  and 
Marcoaldo's  of  Central  dialects,  deserve  to  be  specially  cited.  The  lit- 
erature in  question  is  already  voluminous,  and  bids  fair  to  receive  COD 
siderable  additions. 


264  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

illustrate  their  local  peculiarities.  Their  points  of 
resemblance  and  dissimilarity  have  been  subjected  to 
critical  analysis,  and  great  ingenuity  has  been  expended 
on  the  problem  of  their  origin.  It  will  be  well  to 
preface  what  has  to  be  said  about  them  with  some 
explanation  of  terms.  There  are,  to  begin  with,  two 
distinct  species.  The  Stornello  Ritornello  or  Fiore, 
called  also  Ciure  in  Sicily,  properly  consists  of  two 
or  three  verses  starting  with  the  name  of  a  flower. 
Thus1: 

Fior  di  Granato ! 

Bella,  lo  nome  tuo  sta  scritto  in  cielo, 

Lo  mio  sta  scritto  sull'  onda  del  mare. 

Rispetto  and  Strambotto  are  two  names  for  the  same 
kind  of  song,  which  in  the  north-eastern  provinces  is 
also  called  Villotta  and  in  Sicily  Canzune?  Strictly 
speaking,  the  term  Strambotto  should  be  confined  to 
literary  imitations  of  the  popular  Rispetto.  In  Tuscany 
the  lyric  in  question  consists,  in  its  normal  form,  of  four 
alternately  rhyming  hendecasyllabic  lines,  followed  by 
what  is  technically  called  the  ripresa,  or  repetition, 
which  may  be  composed  of  two,  four,  or  even  more 
verses.  Though  not  strictly  an  octave  stanza,  it 
sometimes  falls  into  this  shape,  and  has  then  two  pairs 
of  three  alternate  rhymes,  finished  up  with  a  couplet. 

1  I  take  this  example  at  random  from  Blessig's  Rdmische  Ritornellt 
(Leipzig,  1860),  p.  48: 

Flower  of  Pomegranate  tree  ! 
Your  name,  O  my  fair  one,  is  written  in  heaven; 
My  name  it  is  writ  on  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

*  The  term  Villotta  or  Vilota  is  special,  I  believe,  to  Venice  and 
the  Friuli.  D'  Ancona  identifies  it  with  Rispetto,  Rubieri  with  Stornello. 
But  it  has  the  character  of  a  quatrain,  and  seems  therefore  more  prop- 
erly to  belong  to  the  former. 


RISPETTI   AND    STORNELL1.  265 

In  the  following  instance  the  quatrain  and  the  riprcsa 
are  well  marked1: 

Quando  sark  quel  benedetto  giomo, 
Che  le  tue  scale  salirb  pian  piano  ? 
I  tuoi  fratelli  mi  verranno  intorno, 
Ad  un  ad  un  gli  toccherb  la  mano. 
Quando  sari  quel  di,  cara  colonna, 
Che  la  tua  mamma  chiamerb  madonna  ? 
Quando  sark  quel  di,  caro  amor  mio  ? 
lo  sarb  vostra,  e  voi  sarete  mio ! 

In  Sicily  the  Canzune  exhibits  a  stanza  of  eight  lines 
rhyming  alternately  throughout  upon  two  sounds. 
Certain  peculiarities,  however,  in  the  structure  of  the 
strophe  render  it  probable  that  it  was  originally  a  qua- 
train followed  by  a  ripresa  of  the  same  length.  Thus2: 

Quannu  nascisti  tu,  stidda  lucenti, 
*N  terra  calaru  tri  ancili  santi; 
Vinniru  li  Tri  Re  d'  Orienti, 
Purtannu  cosi  d'  oru  e  di  brillanti; 
Tri  aculi  vularu  prestamenti, 
Dannu  la  nova  a  punenti  e  a  livanti; 

'  Tigri,  p,  123.    Translated  by  me  thus: 

Ah,  when  will  dawn  that  blissful  day 
When  I  shall  softly  mount  your  stair, 
Your  brothers  meet  me  on  the  way, 
And  one  by  one  I  greet  them  there ! 
When  comes  the  day,  my  staff,  my  strength, 
To  call  your  mother  mine  at  length  ? 
When  will  the  day  come,  love  of  mine, 
I  shall  be  yours  and  you  be  mine ! 

8  Pitre,  vol.  i.  p.  185.    Translated  by  me  thus,  with  an  alteration  in 
the  last  couplet: 

When  thou  wert  born,  O  beaming  star ! 

Three  holy  angels  flew  to  earth; 

The  three  kings  from  the  East  afar 

Brought  gold  and  jewels  of  great  worth; 

Three  eagles  on  wings  light  as  air 

Bore  the  news  East  and  West  and  North, 

O  jewel  fair,  O  jewel  rare, 

So  glad  was  heaven  to  greet  thy  birth. 


266  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Bella,  li  to'  billizzi  su'  putenti ! 
Avi  nov1  anni  chi  ti  sugnu  am  ant  i. 

In  the  north-east  the  Villotta  consists  of  a  simple 
quatrain.  Of  this  form  the  following  is  an  example1: 

Quanti  ghe  n'  e,  che  me  sente  a  cantare, 
E  i  disc; — Custia  canta  dal  bon  tempo. — 
Che  prego  '1  ciel  che  me  possa  agiutare; 
Quando  che  canto,  alora  me  lamento, 

Though  these  are  the  leading  types  of  the  Rispetto, 
Canzune  and  Villotta,  each  district  exhibits  a  variety 
of  subordinate  and  complex  forms.  The  same  may  be 
said  about  the  Stornello,  Ritornello  and  Ciure.  The 
names,  too,  are  very  variously  applied;  nor  without 
pedantry  would  it  be  possible  to  maintain  perfect  precis- 
ion in  their  usage.2  It  is  enough  to  have  indicated  the 
two  broad  classes  into  which  popular  poetry  of  this 
kind  is  divided.  For  the  future  I  shall  refer  to  the 
one  sort  as  Rispetti^  to  the  other  as  Stornelli. 

Comparative  analysis  makes  it  clear  that  the  Ri- 
spetti  and  Stornelli  scattered  over  all  the  provinces  of 
Italy,  constitute  a  common  fund.  That  is  to  say,  we 
do  not  meet  with  the  Rispetti  of  each  dialect  confined 
to  their  own  region;  but  the  same  original  Rispetto* 
perhaps  now  lost  to  sight,  has  been  adapted  and  trans 
formed  to  suit  the  taste  and  idiom  of  the  several  prov- 

1  Dalmedico,  Canti  Ven.  p.  69: 

Many  there  are  who  when  they  hear  me  sing, 

Cry:  There  goes  one  whose  joy  runs  o'er  in  song ! 

But  I  pray  God  to  give  me  succoring; 

For  when  I  sing,  'tis  then  I  grieve  full  strong. 

»  For  instance,  Rispetti  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  are  called  Roman- 
tile.  In  some  parts  of  Central  Italy  the  Stornello  becomes  Mottetto  or 
Raccommandare.  The  little  Southern  lyrics  known  as  Arii  and  Ariettt 
at  Naples  and  in  Sicily,  are  elsewhere  called  Villanelle  or  Napolitant 
and  Siciliane.  It  is  clear  that  in  this  matter  of  nomenclature  great  ex 
actitude  cannot  be  sought. 


THE    HOME    OF    THE    RISPETTJ.  367 

inces.  To  reconstitute  the  primitive  type,  to  decide 
with  certainty  in  each  case  the  true  source  of  these 
lyrics,  is  probably  impossible.  All  we  know  for  certain 
is  that  beneath  apparent  dialectical  divergences  the 
vulgar  poetry  of  the  Italians  presents  unmistakable 
signs  of  identity.1  Which  province  was  the  primitive 
home  of  the  Rispetti;  whether  Sicily,  where  the 
faculty  for  reproducing  them  is  still  most  vivid 2 ;  or 
Tuscany,  where  they  certainly  attain  their  purest  form 
and  highest  beauty;  or  whether  all  Italian  country 
districts  have  contributed  their  quota  to  the  general 
stock ;  are  difficult  questions,  as  yet  by  no  means  satis- 
factorily decided.  Professor  d'  Ancona  advances  a 
theory,  which  is  too  plausible  to  be  ignored  in  silence. 
Rispetti,  he  suggests,  were  first  produced  in  Sicily, 
whence  they  traveled  through  Central  Italy,  receiving 
dialectical  transmutation  in  Tuscany,  and  there  also 
attaining  to  the  perfection  of  their  structure.3  Numer- 
ous slight  indications  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  their 
original  linguistic  type  was  southern.  The  imagery 
also  which  is  common  in  verses  sung  to  this  day  by  the 
peasants  of  the  Pistoja  highlands,  including  frequent 
references  to  the  sea  with  metaphors  borrowed  from 
orange-trees  and  palms,  seems  to  indicate  a  Sicilian 
birthplace.4  We  have,  moreover,  the  early  evidence 

1  The  proofs  adduced  by  D*  Ancona  in  his  Poesia  popolare,  pp.  177- 
284,  seem  to  me  conclusive  on  this  point. 

«  See  Pitre,  Studi  di  Poesia  pnpolare  (Palermo,  Lauriel,  1872),  two 
essays  on  "  I  Poeti  del  Popolo  Siciliano,"  and  "  Pietro  Fullone  e  le  sfide 
popolari,"  pp.  81-184.  He  gives  particulars  relating  to  contemporary 
improvisations.  See,  too,  the  Essays  by  L.  Vigo,  Opere  (Catania 
1870-74),  vol.  5i. 

»  Op.  cit.  pp.  285,  288-294. 

<  I  may  refer  at  large  to  Tigri's  collection,  and  to  my  translations 
of  these  Rispetti  in  Sketches  in  Italy  and  Greece. 


:68  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

of  six  Napolitane  copied  from  a  Magliabecchian  MS 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  which  exhibit  the  transition 
from  southern  to  Tuscan  idiom  and  structure.1  One 
of  these  still  exists  in  several  dialects,  under  the  title 
of  La  Rondinella  importuna."1  It  is  therefore  certain 
that  many  Rispetti  are  very  ancient,  dating  from  the 
Suabian  period,  when  Sicilian  poetry,  as  we  have  seen, 
underwent  the  process  of  toscaneggiamento.  However, 
D'  Ancona's  theory  is  too  hypothetical,  and  it  may  also 
be  said,  too  neat,  to  be  accepted  without  reservation. 

One  point,  at  any  rate,  may  be  considered  certain. 
Though  the  Rispetti  are  still  alive  upon  the  lips  of 
contadini;  though  we  may  hear  them  echoing  from 
farm  and  field  through  all  the  length  and  breadth  of 
Italy;  though  the  voluminous  collections  we  possess 
have  recently  been  gathered  from  viva  voce  recitation ; 
yet  they  are  perhaps  as  ancient  as  the  dialects.  The 
proof  of  this  antiquity  lies  in  the  fact  that  whether  we 
take  the  literary  Strambotti  of  Poliziano  for  our 
standard,  or  the  pasticci,  incatenature  and  intrecciature 
of  the  sixteenth  century  for  guides,  we  find  the  phrases 
and  the  style  that  are  familiar  to  us  in  the  rural  lyrics 
of  to-day.3  Bronzino's  Serenata  and  the  Incatenatura 

1  Curducci,  Cantilene,  p.  57. 

*  See  Rubieri,  Storia  dclla  poesia  pofolare,  pp.  352-356,  for  a  selec- 
tion of  variants. 

3  The  terms  employed  above  require  some  illustration.  Poliziano's 
Canzonet,  La  pastorella  si  leva  per  tempo,  is  a  pasticcio  composed  of 
fragments  from  popular  songs  in  vogue  at  his  day.  We  possess  three 
valuable  poems — one  by  Bronzino,  published  in  1567;  one  by  II  Cieco 
Bianchino  of  Florence,  published  at  Verona  in  1629;  the  third  by  II  Cieco 
Britti  of  Venice,  published  in  the  same  year — which  consist  of  extracts 
from  popular  lyrics  united  together  by  the  rhymster.  Hence  their  name 
incatenatura.  See  Rubieri,  op.  cit.  pp.  121, 130, 212.  See,  too,  D'Ancona, 
op.  cit.  pp.  100-105,  146-172,  for  the  text  and  copious  illustrations  from 
contemporary  sources  of  Bronzino's  and  II  Cieco  Bianchino's  poems. 


PROOFS    OF  ANTIQUITY.  269 

• 

of  Bianchino  contain,  embedded  in  their  structure, 
ditties  which  were  universally  known  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  which  are  being  sung  still  with  unimpor- 
tant alterations  by  the  people.  The  attention  of  learned 
men  was  directed  in  the  renascence  of  Tuscan  literature 
to  the  beauty  of  these  lyrics.  Poliziano,  writing  to 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici  in  1488,  and  describing  his  journey 
with  Pietro  through  Montepulciano  and  Acquapendente 
in  the  month  of  May,  says  that  he  and  his  companions 
amused  themselves  with  rappresaglie  or  adaptations 
of  the  songs  they  heard  upon  the  way.1  His  road 
took  him  through  what  is  still  one  of  the  best  sources 
of  local  verse  and  music;  and  we  may  believe  that  at 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  contadini  of  that 
district  were  singing  nearly  the  same  words  as  now. 
Now,  when  we  examine  the  points  of  similarity  and 
difference  in  the  Italian  Rispetti  and  Stornelli,  as  they 
now  exist,  is  there  anything  improbable  in  this  an- 
tiquity. Nothing  but  great  age  can  account  for  their 
adaptation  to  the  tone,  feeling,  fancy,  habits  and  lan- 
guage of  so  many  regions.  It  must  have  taken  more 
than  a  century  or  two  to  rub  down  their  original 
angles,  to  efface  the  specific  stamp  of  their  birthplace, 
and  to  make  them  pass  for  home  productions  in  Ven- 
ice no  less  than  Palermo,  in  Tuscan  Montalcino  and 
Ligurian  Chiavari. 

The  retentiveness  of  the  popular  memory,  before  it 
has  been  spoiled  by  education,  is  quite  sufficient  to 

'  Prose  Volgari,  etc.,  di  A.  A.  Poliziano  (Firenzc,  Barbara,  1867),  p. 
74.  "Siamo  tutti  allegri,  e  facciamo  buona  cera,  e  becchiamo  per  tutta 
la  via  di  qualche  rappresaglia  e  Canzone  di  Calen  di  Maggio,  che  mi  sono 
parute  piu  fantastiche  qui  in  Acquapendente,  alia  Romanesca,  vel  nota 
ipsa  vel  argumento." 


270  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

account  for  the  preservation  of  these  lyrics  through 
several  hundred  years.  Nor  need  their  wide  diffusion 
suggest  difficulties.  Italy  in  the  middle  ages  offered 
readier  means  of  intercommunication  between  the  in- 
habitants of  her  provinces  than  she  has  done  since  the 
settlement  of  the  country  in  1530.  When  the  libera- 
tion of  the  Communes  gave  a  new  impulse  to  intellec- 
tual and  commercial  activity,  there  began  a  steady  and 
continually  increasing  movement  from  one  city  to 
another.  Commercial  enterprise  led  the  burghers  of 
Pisa,  Lucca,  Florence,  Venice,  Genoa,  to  establish 
themselves  as  bankers  and  middle-men,  brokers  and 
manufacturers,  in  Rome  and  Naples.  Soldiers  of 
adventure  flocked  from  the  south,  and  made  the  north- 
ern towns  their  temporary  home.  The  sanctuaries 
of  Gargano,  Loretto  and  Assisi  drew  pilgrims  from  all 
quarters.  Noblemen  of  Romagna  acted  as  podesta 
beyond  the  Apennines,  while  Lombards  opened  shops 
in  Palermo.  Churchmen  bred  upon  the  Riviera  wore 
the  miter  in  the  March;  natives  of  the  Spoletano 
taught  in  the  schools  of  Bologna  and  Pavia.  Men  of 
letters,  humanists  and  artists  had  no  fixed  dwelling- 
place,  but  wandered,  like  mercenary  soldiers,  from 
town  to  town  in  search  of  better  pay.  Students 
roamed  from  school  to  school  according  as  the  fame 
of  great  professors  drew  them.  Party-quarrels  in  the 
commonwealths  drove  whole  families,  such  as  the 
Florentine  Uberti,  Alberti,  Albizzi,  Strozzi,  into  exile. 
Conquered  cities,  like  Pisa,  sent  forth  their  burghers 
by  hundreds  as  emigrants,  too  proud  to  bear  the  yoke 
of  foes  they  had  resisted.  Nor  were  the  Courts  of 
princes  without  their  influence  in  mingling  the  natives 


OPPORTUNITIES   Of  DIFFUSION.  271 

of  different  districts.  Whether,  then,  we  study  the 
Novelle,  or  the  histories  of  great  houses,  or  the  bio- 
graphies of  eminent  Italians,  or  the  records  of  the 
universities,  we  shall  be  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
from  the  year  1200  to  the  year  i55o  there  was  a  per- 
petual and  lively  intercourse  by  land  and  sea  between 
the  departments  of  Italy.  This  reciprocity  of  influ- 
ence did  not  cease  until  the  two  despotic  races,  Aus- 
trian and  Spaniard',  threw  each  separate  province  into 
solitary  chains.  Such  being  the  conditions  of  social 
exchange  at  the  epoch  when  the  language  was  in  pro- 
cess of  formation,  there  is  nothing  strange  in  finding 
the  rural  poetry  of  the  south  acclimatized  in  central 
and  northern  Italy.  But  the  very  facility  of  com- 
munication and  the  probable  antiquity  of  these  lyrics 
should  make  us  cautious  in  adopting  any  rigid 
hypothesis  about  their  origin.  It  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  such  transferable  property  as  love-poems 
might  have  been  everywhere  produced  and  rapidly 
diffused,  the  best  from  each  center  surviving  by  a 
natural  process  of  selection.  Lastly,  whatever  view 
may  be  taken  of  their  formation  and  their  age,  we 
have  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  fifteenth  century 
was  a  fruitful  period  of  production  and  accumulation. 
Toward  the  close  of  the  quattrocento  they  attracted 
the  curiosity  of  lettered  poets,  who  began  to  imitate 
them,  and  in  the  next  hundred  years  they  were  com- 
mitted in  large  numbers  to  the  press.1 

'  See  D'Ancona,  op.  cit.  pp.  354-420,  for  copious  and  interesting  no- 
tices of  the  popular  press  in  several  Italian  towns.  The  Avallone  of  Na- 
ples, Cordelia  of  Venice,  Marescandoli  of  Florence,  Bertini  and  Baroni 
of  Lucca,  Colombo,  of  Bologna,  all  served  the  special  requirements  of 
the  proletariate  in  town  and  country.  G.  B.  Verini  of  Florence  made 


272  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

In  addition  to  the  influence  exercised  by  these 
popular  lyrics  over  polite  literature  in  the  golden  age 
of  the  Renaissance,  extraordinary  interest  attaches  to 
them  as  an  indigenous  species  of  verse,  dating  from 
remote  antiquity  and  still  surviving  in  all  corners  of 
the  country.  In  them  we  analyze  the  Italian  poetic 
genius  at  its  source  and  under  its  most  genuine  condi- 
tions. Both  from  their  qualities  and  their  defects 
inferences  may  be  drawn,  which  find  application  and 
illustration  in  the  solemn  works  of  laureled  singers. 
The  one  theme  of  Rispetti  and  Stornelli  is  love;  but 
love  in  all  its  phases  and  with  all  its  retinue  of 
associated  emotions — expectation,  fruition,  disappoint- 
ment, jealousy,  despair,  rejection,  treachery,  desertion, 
pleading,  scorn — the  joys  of  presence,  the  pangs  of 
absence,  the  ecstasy  of  union,  the  agony  of  parting — 
love,  natural  and  unaffected,  turbulent  or  placid,  chaste 
or  troubled  with  desire,  imperious  or  humble,  tempes- 
tuously passionate  or  toned  to  tranquil  acquiescence — 
love  varying  through  all  moods  and  tempers,  yet  never 
losing  its  note  of  spontaneity,  sincerity  and  truth.  The 
instincts  of  the  people  are  pure,  and  their  utterances 
of  affection  are  singularly  free  from  grossness.  This 
at  least  is  almost  universally  the  case  with  lyrics 
gathered  from  the  country.  Approaching  town-life, 
they  lose  their  delicacy;  and  the  products  of  the  city- 
anthologies  called  L'  Ardor  d'  Amore  and  Crudeltd  d'  Amore  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  both  of  which  are  still  reprinted.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
Olimpia  and  Gloria  of  Olimpo  degli  Alessandri  of  Sassoferrato.  The 
subordinate  titles  commonly  used  in  these  popular  Golden  Treasuries 
are,  "Canzoni  di  amore,"  "di  gelosia,"  "di  sdegno,"  "di  pace  e  di  par- 
tenza."  Their  classification  and  description  appear  from  the  following 
rubrics:  "  Mattinate,"  "  Serenate,"  "  Partenze,"  "  Strambotti,"  "  Sdegni,' 
"Sonetti,"  "  Villanelle,"  "  Lettere,"  "  Affetti  d'  Amore,"  etc. 


THE    CHANT  &  AMOUR.  273 

are  not  unfrequently  distinguished  by  the  crudest 
obscenity. l  The  literary  form  of  many  of  these  master- 
pieces exhibits  the  beauty  of  rhythm,  the  refinement 
of  outline,  which  we  associate  with  melodies  of  the 
best  Italian  period — with  chants  of  Pergolese,  songs  of 
Salvator  Rosa.  When  we  compare  their  subject- 
matter  with  that  of  our  Northern  Ballads,  we  notice  a 
marked  deficiency  of  legend,  superstition  or  grotesque 
fancy.  There  are  no  witches,  dragons,  demon-lovers, 
no  enchanted  forests,  no  mythical  heroes,  no  noble 
personages,  few  ghosts,  few  dreams  and  visions,  in 
these  songs  poured  forth  among  the  olive-trees  and 
myrtle-groves  of  Italy.  Human  nature,  conscious  of 
pleasure  and  of  pain,  finding  its  primitive  emotion  an 
adequate  motive  for  verse  subtly  modulated  through  a 
thousand  keys,  is  here  sufficient  to  itself.  The  echoes 
imported  from  an  outer  world  of  passion  and  romance 
and  action  into  this  charmed  region  of  the  lover's  heart 
are  rare  and  feeble.  Through  all  their  national  vicissi- 
tudes, the  Italian  peasants  followed  one  sole  aim  in 
verse.  The  Rispetti  of  all  times,  localities  and  dialects 
form  one  protracted,  ever-varying  Duo  between  Thou 
and  I,  the  dama  and  the  damo,  the  eternal  protagonists 
in  the  play  of  youth  and  love. 

This  absence  of  legendary  and  historical  material 
marks  a  main  difference  between  Italian  and  Teutonic 
inspiration.  Among  the  Italic  communities  the  prac- 
tical historic  sense  was  early  developed,  and  sustained 
by  the  tradition  of  a  classic  past.  It  demanded  a  posi- 
tive rather  than  imaginative  treatment  of  contemporary 

1  Upon  this  point  consult  Rubieri,  op.  cit.  chap.  xiv.  In  Sicily  the 
Gure,  says  Pitre,  is  reckoned  unfit  for  an  honest  woman's  mouth. 


174  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

fact  and  mythus.  Among  the  people  this  require- 
ment was  satisfied  by  Storie,  Lamenti,  and  prose  Chron- 
icles. Very  few,  indeed,  are  the  relics  of  either  ro 
mantic  or  actual  history  surviving  in  the  lyrics  of  the 
rural  population.  Only  here  and  there,  in  dim  allu- 
sions to  the  Sicilian  Vespers  and  the  Norman  Con- 
quest, in  the  tale  of  the  Baronessa  di  Carini,  or  in 
the  Northern  legend  of  Rosmunda,  under  its  popular 
form  of  La  Donna  Lombarda,  do  we  find  a  faint 
analogy  between  the  Italian  and  Teutonic  ballads. l 
Dramatic,  mythical  and  epical  elements  are  almost 
wholly  wanting  in  the  genuine  lyrics  of  the  people. 

This  statement  requires  some  qualification.  The 
four  volumes  of  Fiabe,  Novelle  e  Racconti  recently 
published  by  Signer  Pitre,  prove  that  the  Sicilians  in 
prose  at  least  have  a  copious  literature  corresponding 
to  German  Marchen  and  Norse  tales.2  This  litera- 
ture, however,  has  not  received  poetic  treatment  in 
any  existing  southern  songs  that  have  been  published, 
excepting  in  the  few  already  noticed.  At  the  same 
time,  it  must  be  mentioned  that  the  collections  of  lyrics 
in  north-western  dialects — especially  the  Canti  Mon~ 
ferriniy  Canzoni  Comasche,  and  Canti  Leccesi — exhibit 
specimens  of  genuine  ballads.  It  would  seem  that 
contact  with  French  and  German  borderers  along  the 
Alpine  rampart  had  introduced  into  Piedmont  and 
Lombardy  a  form  of  lyric  which  is  not  essentially 
Italian.  Had  I  space  sufficient  at  disposal,  I  should 

1  The  South  seems  richer  in  this  material  than  the  Center.  See 
Pitre's  Canti  Pop.  Sic.  vol.  ii.,  among  the  Leggende  e  Storie,  especially 
La  Comare,  Minni-spartuti,  Principessa  di  Carini,  L Innamorata  dfi 
Diavolo,  and  some  of  the  bandit  songs. 

•  Palermo,  Lauriel,  1875. 


BALLADS.  275 

like  to  quote  the  Donna  Lombarda,  Moglie  Tnfedele, 
Giuseppina  Parricida,  Principessa  Giovanna,  Giuliano 
delta  Croce  Bianca,  Cecilia,  R2  Carlino,  Morando,  and 
several  others  from  Ferraro's  collection.1  They  illus- 
trate, what  is  exceedingly  rare  in  popular  Italian 
poetry,  both  the  subject-matter  and  the  manner  pe- 
culiar to  the  Northern  Ballad.  Let  the  following 
verses  from  La  Sposa  per  Forza  suffice2: 

Ra  soi  madona  a  r'  ha  brassaja 

Suvra  u  so  coffu  a  r'  ha  minee; 

Uardee  qui,  ra  me  noiretta, 

Le  bele  gioje  che  vi  v6i  dunee. 
Mi  n1  ho  csa  fe  die  vostre  gioje; 

E  mane  ancur  dla  vostra  ca; 

Cma  ca  voja  dir  bel  gioje 

Ra  me  mama  m'  na  mandira. 

To  comparative  mythologists  in  general,  and  to 
English  students  in  particular,  the  most  interesting  of 
these  rare  Italian  Ballads  is  undoubtedly  one  known 
as  L  Awelenato?  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  it  is  unique 
in  the  Italian  language;  nor  had  its  correspondences 
with  Northern  Ballad-literature  been  noticed  until  I 
pointed  them  out  in  1879.*  In  his  work  on  popular 
Italian  poetry,  Professor  D'  Ancona  included  the  fol- 
lowing song,  which  he  had  heard  upon  the  lips  of  a 
young  peasant  of  the  Pisan  district5: 

1  Canti  Monferrini  (Torino-Firenze,  Loescher,  1870),  pp.  1,6,  14,  26, 
28,  34,  42.  One  of  the  ballads  cited  above,  La  Sisilia,  is  found  in  Sicily. 

•  Ibid.  p.  48. 

•  It  does  not  occur  in  the  Canti  Monferrini. 

•  See  my  letter  to  the  Rassegna  Settimanale,  March  9,  1879,  on  *ne 
subject  of  this  ballad.    Though  I  begged  Italian  students  for  information 
respecting  similar  compositions  my  letter  only  elicited  a  Tuscan  version 
of  the  Donna  Lombarda. 

4  Op.  cit.  p.  1 06. 


276  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Dov'  eri  'ersera  a  cena 

Caro  mio  figlio,  savio  e  gentfl  ? 

Mi  fai  morire 

Ohimfc ! 

Dov'  eri  'ersera  a  cena 
Gentile  mio  cavalier  ? — 
Ero  dalla  mia  clama; 

Mio  core  stk  male, 

Che  male  mi  sta ! 
Ero  dalla  mia  dama; 
'L  mio  core  che  se  ne  va. — 
Che  ti  dtenno  da  cena, 
Caro  mio  figlio,  savio  e  gentil  ? 

Mi  fai  morire, 

Ohimfc ! 

Che  ti  dienno  da  cena, 
Gentile  mio  cavalier  ? — 
Un  anguilletta  arrosto, 

Cara  mia  madre; 

Mio  core  sta  male, 

Che  male  mi  stk  ! 
Un  anguilletta  arrosto, 
'L  mio  core  che  se  ne  va. 

Other  versions  of  the  same  poem  occur  in  the  dialects  of 
Venice,  Como  and  Lecco  with  such  variations  as  prove 
them  all  to  be  the  offshoots  from  some  original  now 
lost  in  great  antiquity.  That  it  existed  and  was 
famous  so  far  back  as  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  is  proved  by  an  allusion  in  the  Cicalata  in 
lode  delta  Padella  e  delta  Frittura,  recited  before  the 
Accademia  della  Crusca  by  Lorenzo  Panciatichi  in 
I656.1  A  few  lines  are  also  quoted  in  the  incatenatura 
of  the  Cieco  Fiorentino,  published  at  Verona  in  1 629.2 
Any  one  who  is  familiar  with  our  Border  Minstrelsy 
will  perceive  at  once  that  this  is  only  an  Italian  version 
of  the  Ballad  of  Lord  Donald  or  Lord  Randal.3 

'  D'Ancona,  op.  cit.  p.  106.  *  Ibid.  pp.  99,  105. 

3  See  Child's  English  and  Scottish  Ballads,  vol.  ii.  pp.  244,  et  sey. 


VAVVELENATO.  37? 

The  identity  between  the  two  is  rendered  still  more 
striking  by  an  analysis  of  the  several  Lombard 
versions.  In  that  of  Como,  for  example,  the  young 
man  makes  his  will;  and  this  is  the  last  verse1: 

Cossa  lasse  alia  vostra  dama, 
Figliuol  mio  caro,  fiorito  e  gentil, 
Cossa  lasse  alia  vostra  dama  ? 

La  fdrca  da  impiccarla, 
Signora  mama,  mio  cor  sta  mal  I 
La  fdrca  da  impiccarla: 

Ohime,  ch'  io  moro,  ohime ! 

The  same  version  furnishes  the  episode  of  the  poi- 
soned hounds2: 

Coss'  avi  ft  dell*  altra  mezza. 
Figliuol  mio  caro,  fiorito  e  gentil  ? 
Cossa  avi  fS  dell'  altra  mezza  ? 

L1  h6  dada  alia  cagnola: 
Signora  mama,  mio  core  sta  mal  1 
L'  ho  dada  alia  cagnola: 

Ohime,  ch'  io  moro,  ohime  ! 
Cossa  avi  f4  della  cagnbla, 
Figliuol  mio  caro,  fiorito  e  gentil  ? 
Cossa  avi  ft  della  cagnola  ? 
L'  e  morta  dre"  la  strada; 

1  Bolza,  Cam.  Pop.  Comasche,  No.  49.    Here  is  the  Scotch  version 
from  Lord  Donald: 

What  will  ye  leave  to  your  true-love,  Lord  Donald,  my  son  ? 
What  will  ye  leave  to  your  true-love,  my  jollie  young  man  ? 
The  tow  and  the  halter,  for  to  hang  on  yon  tree, 
And  lat  her  hang  there  for  the  poisoning  o*  me. 

*  This  is  the  Scotch  version,  with  the  variant  of  Lord  Randal: 

What  gat  ye  to  your  dinner,  Lord  Randal,  my  son  ? 
What  gat  ye  to  your  dinner,  my  handsome  young  man  ? 
I  gat  eels  boiled  in  broo;  mother,  make  my  bed  soon, 
For  I'm  weary  wi'  hunting,  and  fain  wald  lie  down. 

What  became  of  your  bloodhounds,  Lord  Randal,  my  son  ? 
What  became  of  your  bloodhounds,  my  handsome  young  man 
O,  they  swelled  and  they  died;  mother,  make  my  bed  soon, 
For  I'm  weary  wi'  hunting,  and  fain  wald  lie  down. 


278  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Signora  mama,  mio  core  sta  mal ! 
L*  e  morta  dre"  la  strada: 
Ohime,  ch'  io  moro,  ohime  I 

It  is  worth  mentioning  that  the  same  Ballad 
belongs  under  slightly  different  forms  to  the  Germans, 
Swedes,  and  other  nations  of  the  Teutonic  stock;  but 
so  far  as  I  have  yet  been  able  to  discover,  it  remains  the 
sole  instance  of  that  species  of  popular  literature  in 
Italy.1  The  phenomenon  is  singular,  and  though  con- 
jectures may  be  hazarded  in  explanation,  it  is  impos- 
sible, until  further  researches  for  parallel  examples 
have  been  made,  to  advance  a  theory  of  how  this 
Ballad  penetrated  so  far  south  as  Tuscany. 

1  In  Passano's  I  Nwellieri  Italiani  in  Verso  I  find,  at  p.  20,  the  notice 
of  a  poem,  in  octave  stanzas,  which  corresponds  exactly  to  the  Heir 
of  Lynn.  Published  at  Venice,  1530,  1531,  1542,  it  bears  this  title:  "Es- 
sempio  dun  giovane  ricchissimo;  qual  consumata  la  ricchezza:  disperato 
a  un  trave  si  sospese.  Nel  qual  il  padre  previsto  il  suo  fatalcorso  gia 
molti  anni  avanti  infinito  tesoro  posto  havea,  et  quello  per  il  carico  fra- 
cassato,  la  occulta  moneta  scoperse."  The  young  man's  name  is  Fenitio. 
I  have  not  seen  this  poem,  and  since  it  is  composed  in  ottava  rima  it  can- 
not be  classed  exactly  with  the  Awelenato.  Passano  also  catalogues 
the  Historia  di  tre  Giovani  disperati  e  di  ire  fate,  and  the  Historia  di  Leon 
Brunn  which  seem  to  contain  ballad  elements. 


CHAPTER  V. 

POPULAR  RELIGIOUS  POETRY. 

The  Thirteenth  Century — Outburst  of  Flagellant  Fanaticism — The 
Battuti,  Bianchi,  Disciplinati — Acquire  the  name  of  Laudesi — 
Jacopone  da  Todi  —  His  Life — His  Hymns — The  Corrotto — Fran- 
ciscan Poetry — Tresatti's  Collection — Grades  of  Spiritual  Ecstasy — 
Lauds  of  the  Confraternities — Benivieni — Feo  Belcari  and  the  Floren- 
tine Hymn-writers — Relation  to  Secular  Dance-songs — Origins  of 
the  Theater — Italy  had  hardly  any  true  Miracle  Plays — Umbrian 
Divozioni — The  Laud  becomes  Dramatic — Passion  Plays — Medieval 
Properties — The  Stage  in  Church  or  in  the  Oratory — The  Sacra 
Rappresentazione — A  Florentine  Species — Fraternities  for  Boys — 
Names  of  the  Festa — Theory  of  its  Origin — Shows  in  Medieval  Italy 
— Pageants  of  S.  John's  Day  at  Florence — Their  Machinery — Floren- 
tine Ingegnieri — Forty-three  Plays  in  D'  Ancona's  Collection — Their 
Authors — The  Prodigal  Son — Elements  of  Farce — Interludes  and 
Music — Three  Classes  of  Sacre  Rappresentazioni — Biblical  Subjects 
— Legends  of  Saints — Popular  Novelle — Conversion  of  the  Magdalen 
— Analysis  of  Plays. 

THE  history  of  popular  religious  poetry  takes  us  back 
to  the  first  age  of  Italian  literature  and  to  the  discords 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  All  Italy  had  been  torn 
asunder  by  the  internecine  struggle  of  Frederick  II. 
with  Innocent  III.  and  Gregory  IX.  The  people 
saw  the  two  chiefs  of  Christendom  at  open  warfare, 
exchanging  anathemas,  and  doing  each  what  in  him 
lay  to  render  peace  and  amity  impossible.  Milan 
resounded  to  the  shrieks  of  paterini,  burned  upon  the 
public  square  by  order  of  an  intolerant  pontiff.  Padua 
echoed  with  the  groans  of  Ezzelino's  victims,  doomed 
to  death  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands  in  his  dun- 


280  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

geons,  or  cast  forth  maimed  and  mutilated  to  perish  in 
the  fields.  The  southern  provinces  swarmed  with 
Saracens,  whom  an  infidel  Emperor  had  summoned  to 
his  aid  against  a  fanatical  Pope.  It  seemed  as  though 
the  age,  which  had  witnessed  the  assertion  of  Italian 
independence  and  the  growth  of  the  free  cities,  was 
about  to  end  in  a  chaos  of  bloodshed,  fire  and  frantic 
cruelty.  The  climax  of  misery  and  fury  was  reached 
in  the  Crusade  launched  by  Alexander  IV.  against  the 
tyrants  of  the  Trevisan  Marches.  When  Ezzelino  died 
like  a  dog  in  1269,  the  maddened  populace  believed 
that  his  demon  had  now  been  loosed  from  chains  of 
flesh,  and  sent  forth  to  the  elements  to  work  its  will  in 
freedom.  The  prince  of  darkness  was  abroad  and 
menacing.  Though  the  monster  had  perished,  the 
myth  of  evil  that  survived  him  had  power  to  fascinate, 
and  was  intolerable. 

The  conscience  of  the  people,  crazed  by  the  sight  of 
such  iniquity  and  suffering,  bereft  of  spiritual  guidance, 
abandoned  to  bad  government,  made  itself  suddenly 
felt  in  an  indescribable  movement  of  religious  terror. 
"In  the  year  1260,"  wrote  the  Chronicler  of  Padua,1 
"  when  Italy  was  defiled  by  many  horrible  crimes,  a 
sudden  and  new  perturbation  seized  at  first  upon  the 
folk  of  Perugia,  next  upon  the  Romans,  and  lastly  on 
the  population  of  all  Italy,  who,  stung  by  the  fear  of 
God,  went  forth  processionally,  gentle  and  base-born, 
old  and  young,  together,  through  the  city  streets  and 
squares,  naked  save  for  a  waist-band  round  their  loins, 
holding  a  whip  of  leather  in  their  hands,  with  tears 
and  groans,  scourging  their  shoulders  till  the  blood 
i  Muratori,  Rer.  Ital.  Script.  viiL  712. 


THE    FLAGELLANTS.  281 

flowed  down.  Not  by  day  alone,  but  through  the 
night  in  the  intense  cold  of  winter,  with  lighted  torches 
they  roamed  by  hundreds,  by  thousands,  by  tens  of 
thousands,  through  the  churches,  and  flung  themselves 
down  before  the  altars,  led  by  priests  with  crosses  and 
banners.  The  same  happened  in  all  villages  and 
hamlets,  so  that  the  fields  and  mountains  resounded' 
with  the  cries  of  sinners  calling  upon  God.  All 
instruments  of  music  and  songs  of  love  were  hushed ; 
only  the  dismal  wail  of  penitents  was  heard  in  town 
and  country." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  this  fanaticism  of  the  Flagel- 
lants began  among  the  Umbrian  highlands,  the  home 
of  S.  Francis  and  the  center  of  pietistic  art,  where  the 
passions  of  the  people  have  ever  been  more  quickly 
stirred  by  pathos  than  elsewhere  in  Italy.  The 
Battuti)  as  they  were  called,  formed  no  mere  sect. 
Populations  of  whole  cities,  goaded  by  an  irresistible 
impulse,  which  had  something  of  the  Dionysiac  mad- 
ness in  it,  went  forth  as  though  a  migration  of  the 
race  had  been  initiated.  Blind  instinct,  the  intoxica- 
tion of  religious  frenzy,  urged  them  restlessly  and 
aimlessly  from  place  to  place.  They  had  no  Holy 
Land,  no  martyr's  shrine,  in  view.  Only  the  ineffable 
horror  of  a  coming  judgment,  only  the  stings  of 
spiritual  apprehension,  the  fierce  craving  after  sym- 
pathy in  common  acts  of  delirium,  the  allurements  of 
an  exaltation  shared  by  thousands,  drove  them  on, 
lugubrious  herds,  like  Maenads  of  the  wrath  of  God. 
This  insurgence  of  all  classes,  swelling  upward  from 
the  lowest,  gaining  the  middle  regions,  and  confound- 
the  highest  in  the  flood  of  one  promiscuous 


282  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

multitude,  threatened  the  very  fabric  of  society.1 
Repentance  and  compunction,  exhibited  upon  a  scale 
of  such  colossal  magnitude,  attended  by  incidents  of 
such  impassioned  frenzy,  assumed  the  aspect  of  vice 
and  of  insanity.  Florence  shut  her  gates  to  the  half- 
naked  Battuti.  At  Milan  the  tyrants  of  the  Delia 
Torre  blood  raised  600  gibbets  as  a  warning. 
Manfred  drew  a  military  cordon  round  his  southern 
States  to  save  them  from  contagion.  The  revival  was 
diagnosed  by  cold  observers  as  an  epidemic,  or  as  a 
craving  akin  to  that  which  sets  in  motion  droves  of 
bisons  on  a  trackless  plain.  It  needed  drastic  meas- 
ures of  Draconian  justice  to  curb  a  disease  which 
threatened  the  whole  nation.  Gradually,  the  first  fury 
of  this  fanatical  enthusiasm  subsided.  It  was  but  the 
symptom  of  moral  and  intellectual  bewilderment,  of 
what  the  French  would  call  ahurissement,  in  a  race  of 
naturally  firm  and  patient  fiber.  Yet,  when  it  passed, 
durable  traces  of  the  agitation  remained.  Lay  frater- 
nities were  formed,  not  only  in  Umbria  and  Tuscany, 
but  in  almost  all  provinces  of  the  peninsula,  who 
called  themselves  Disciplinati  di  Gesu  Cristo.  These 
societies  aimed  at  continuing  the  ascetic  practices  of 
the  Flagellants,  and  at  prolonging  their  passion  of 
penitence  in  a  more  sober  spirit.  Scourging  formed 
an  essential  part  of  their  observances,  but  it  was  used 
with  decency  and  moderation.  Their  constitution  was 
strictly  democratic,  within  limits  sanctioned  by  the 
clergy.  They  existed  for  the  people,  supplementing 

'  A  curious  letter  describing  the  entrance  of  the  Battuti  into  Rome  in 
1399  may  be  read  in  Romagnoli's  publication  Le  Compagnie  tie'  Battuti 
in  Roma,  Bologna,  1862.  It  refers  to  a  period  later  by  a  century  than 
the  first  outbreak  of  the  enthusiasm. 


THE   LAUDESI.  283 

and  not  superseding  the  offices  of  the  Church.  From 
the  date  of  their  foundation  they  seem  to  have  paid 
much  attention  to  the  recitation  of  hymns  in  the 
vernacular.  These  hymns  were  called  Laude.  Writ- 
ten for  and  by  the  people,  they  were  distinguished 
from  the  Latin  hymns  of  the  Church  by  greater  spon- 
taneity and  rudeness.  No  limit  of  taste  or  literary  art 
was  set  to  the  expression  of  a  fervent  piety.  The  Lauds 
dwelt  chiefly  on  the  Passion  of  our  Lord,  and  were  used 
as  a  stimulus  to  compunction.  In  course  of  time  this  part 
of  their  system  became  so  prominent  that  the  Battuti 
or  Disciplinati  acquired  the  milder  title  of  Laudesi.1 

From  the  Laudesi  of  the  fourteenth  century  rose 
one  great  lyric  poet,  Jacopone  da  Todi,  whose  hymns 
embrace  the  whole  gamut  of  religious  passion,  from 

1  Some  banners — Gonfaloni  or  Stendardi — of  the  Perugian  fraterni- 
ties, preserved  in  the  Pinacoteca  of  that  town,  are  interesting  for  their 
illustration  of  these  religious  companies  at  a  later  date.  The  Gonfalone 
of  S.  Bernardino  by  Bonfigli  represents  the  saint  between  heaven  and 
earth  pleading  for  his  votaries.  Their  Oratory  (Cappella  di  Giustizia)  is 
seen  behind,  and  in  front  are  the  men  and  women  of  the  order.  That 
of  the  Societas  Annuntiatcz  with  date  1466,  shows  a  like  band  of  lay 
brethren  and  sisters.  That  of  the  Giustizia  by  Perugino  has  a  similar 
group,  kneeling  and  looking  up  to  Madonna,  who  is  adored  by  S.  Fran- 
cis and  S.  Bernardino  in  the  heavens.  Behind  is  a  landscape  with  a 
portion  of  Perugia  near  the  Church  of  S.  Francis.  The  Stendardo  of 
the  Confraternity  di  S.  Agostino  by  Pinturicchio  exhibits  three  white- 
clothed  members  of  the  body,  kneeling  and  gazing  up  to  their  patron. 
There  is  also  a  fine  picture  in  the  Perugian  Pinacoteca  by  Giov.  Boccati 
of  Camerino  (signed  and  dated  1447)  representing  Madonna  enthroned 
in  a  kind  of  garden,  surrounded  by  child-like  angels  with  beautiful  blonde 
hair,  singing  and  reading  from  choir  books  in  a  double  row  of  semi- 
circular choir-stalls.  Below,  S.  Francis  and  S.  Dominic  are  leading 
each  two  white  Disciplinati  to  the  throne.  These  penitents  carry  their 
scourges,  and  holes  cut  in  the  backs  of  their  monastic  cloaks  show  the 
skin  red  with  stripes.  One  on  either  side  has  his  face  uncovered:  the 
other  wears  the  hood  down,  with  eye-holes  pierced  in  it.  This  picture 
belonged  to  the  Confraternity  of  S.  Domenico. 


284  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

tender  emotions  of  love  to  somber  anticipations  of 
death  and  thrilling  visions  of  judgment.  Reading  him, 
we  listen  to  the  true  lyrical  cry  of  the  people's  heart 
in  its  intolerance  of  self-restraint,  blending  the  lan- 
guage of  erotic  ecstasy  with  sobs  and  sighs  of  soul- 
consuming  devotion,  aspiring  to  heaven  on  wings  sped 
by  the  energy  of  human  desire.  The  flight  of  his  ine- 
briated piety  transcends  and  out-soars  the  strongest 
pinion  of  ecclesiastical  hymnology.  Such  lines  as — 

Fac  me  plagis  vulnerari, 
Cruce  hac  inebriari 
Ob  amorem  filii — 

do  but  supply  the  theme  for  Jacopone's  descant.  Vio- 
lently discordant  notes  clash  and  mingle  in  his  chords, 
and  are  resolved  in  bursts  of  ardor  bordering  on 
delirium.  He  leaps  from  the  grotesque  of  plebeian 
imagery  to  pictures  of  sublime  pathos,  from  incoherent 
gaspings  to  sentences  pregnant  with  shrewd  knowl- 
edge of  the  heart,  by  sudden  and  spontaneous  trans- 
itions, which  reveal  the  religious  sentiment  in  its 
simplest  form,  unspoiled  by  dogma,  unstiffened  by 
scholasticism.  None,  for  example,  but  a  true  child  of 
the  people  could  have  found  the  following  expression 
of  a  desire  to  suffer  with  Christ1: 


O  Signer  per  cortesia 
Mandame  la  malsania 

A  me  la  freve  quartana 
la  contina  e  la  terzana, 
la  doppia  cottidiana 
Colla  grande  ydropesia. 


1  Canticidi  Jacopone  da  Todl  (Roma,  Salviano,  1558),  p.  64.    I  quote 
jvom  this  edition  as  the  most  authentic,  and  reproduce  its  orthography 


J AGO  PONE    DA    TODI.  285 

A  me  venga  mal  de  dente 

Mai  de  capo  e  mal  de  ventre, 

a  lo  stomaco  dolor  pungente 

en  canna  1'  asquinantia. 
Mal  de  occhi  e  doglia  de  fianco 

e  la  postema  al  lato  manco 

tyseco  me  ionga  enalco 

e  omne  tempo  la  frenesia. 
Agia  el  fegato  rescaldato 

la  milza  grossa  el  ventre  enfiato, 

lo  polmone  sia  piagato 

Con  gran  tossa  e  parlasta. 

In  order  to  understand  Jacopone  da  Todi  and  to  form 
any  true  conception  of  the  medium  from  which  his 
poems  sprang,  it  is  necessary  to  study  the  legend  of 
his  life,  which,  though  a  legend,  bears  upon  its  face  the 
stamp  of  truth.  It  is  an  offshoot  from  the  Saga  of  S. 
Francis,  a  vivid  utterance  of  the  times  which  gave  it 
birth.1  Jacopone  was  born  at  Todi,  one  of  those 
isolated  ancient  cities  which  rear  themselves  upon 
their  hill-tops  between  the  valleys  of  the  Nera  and 
the  Tiber,  on  the  old  post-road  from  Narni  to  Perugia. 
He  belonged  to  the  family  of  the  Benedetti,  who  were 
reckoned  among  the  noblest  of  the  district.  In  his 
youth  he  followed  secular  studies,  took  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Laws,  and  practiced  with  a  keen  eye  for 
gain  and  with  not  less,  his  biographer  hints,  than  the 
customary  legal  indifference  for  justice.  He  married  a 
beautiful  young  wife,  whom  he  dressed  splendidly  and 
sent  among  his  equals  to  all  places  of  medieval  amuse- 
ment. She  was,  however,  inwardly  religious.  The 
spirit  of  S.  Francis  had  passed  over  her;  and  un- 

1  This  Life  is  prefixed  to  Salviano's  Roman  edition  of  Jacopone's 
hymns,  1558. 


286  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

known  to  all  the  crowd  around  her,  unknown  to  hei 
husband,  she  practiced  the  extremities  of  ascetic  piety. 
One  day  she  went,  at  her  husband's  bidding,  to  a 
merry-making  of  the  nobles  of  Todi;  and  it  so 
happened  that  "  while  she  was  dancing  and  taking 
pleasure  with  the  rest,  an  accident  occurred,  fit  to 
move  the  greatest  pity.  For  the  platform  whereupon 
the  party  were  assembled,  fell  in  and  was  broken  to 
pieces,  causing  grievous  injury  to  those  who  stood 
upon  it.  She  was  so  hurt  in  the  fall  that  she  lost 
the  power  of  speech,  and  in  a  few  hours  after  died. 
Jacopo,  who  by  God's  mercy  was  not  there,  no  sooner 
heard  the  sad  news  of  his  wife  than  he  ran  to  the 
place.  He  found  her  on  the  point  of  death,  and 
sought,  as  is  usual  in  those  cases,  to  unlace  her;  but 
she,  though  she  could  not  speak,  offered  resistance  to 
her  husband's  unlacing  her.  However,  he  used  force 
and  overcame  her,  and  unlaced  and  carried  her  to  his 
house.  There,  when  she  had  died,  he  unclothed  her 
with  his  own  hands,  and  found  that  underneath  those 
costly  robes  and  next  to  her  naked  flesh  she  wore  a 
hair-shirt  of  the  roughest  texture.  Jacopone,  who  up 
to  now  had  believed  his  wife,  since  she  was  young 
and  beautiful,  to  be  like  other  women,  worldly  and 
luxurious,  stood  as  it  were  astonished  and  struck  dumb 
when  he  beheld  a  thing  so  contrary  to  his  opinion. 
Wherefore  from  that  time  forward  he  went  among 
men  like  to  one  who  is  stunned,  and  appeared  no 
longer  to  be  a  reasonable  man  as  theretofore.  The 
cause  of  this  his  change  to  outward  view  was  not  a 
sudden  infirmity  of  health,  or  extraordinary  sorrow  for 
the  cruel  death  of  his  wife,  or  any  such- like  occur- 


LEGEND    OF   JACO PONE'S   LIFE.  287 

rence,  but  an  overwhelming  compunction  of  the  heart 
begotten  in  him  by  this  ensample,  and  a  new  recogni- 
tion of  what  he  was  and  of  his  own  wretchedness. 
Wherefore  turning  back  to  his  own  heart,  and  reckon- 
ing with  bitterness  the  many  years  that  had  been  spent 
so  badly,  and  seeing  the  peril  in  which  he  had  con- 
tinued up  to  that  time,  he  set  himself  to  change  the 
manner  of  his  life,  and  even  as  he  had  lived  heretofore 
wholly  for  the  world,  so  now  he  resolved  to  live  wholly 
for  Christ." 

Jacopone's  biographer  goes  on  to  tell  us  how,  after 
this  shock,  he  became  an  altered  man.  He  sold  all 
his  goods  and  gave  away  his  substance  to  the  poor, 
retaining  nothing  for  himself,  but  seeking  by  every 
device  within  his  power  to  render  himself  vile  and 
ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  men.  At  one  time  he  stripped 
himself  naked,  and  put  upon  his  back  the  trappings  of 
an  ass,  and  so  appeared  among  the  gentles  of  his 
earlier  acquaintance.  On  another  occasion  he  entered 
a  company  of  merry-making  folk  in  his  brother's  house 
without  clothes,  smeared  with  turpentine  and  rolled  in 
feathers  like  a  bird.1  By  these  mad  pranks  he  ac- 
quired the  reputation  of  one  half-witted,  and  the  people 
called  him  Jacopone  instead  of  Messer  Jacopo  de' 
Benedetti.  Yet  there  was  a  keen  spirit  living  in  the 
man,  who  had  determined  literally  to  become  a  fool  for 
Christ's  sake.  A  citizen  once  bought  a  fowl  and  bade 
Jacopone  carry  it  to  his  house.  Jacopone  took  the 
bird  and  placed  it  in  the  man's  family  vault,  where  it 
was  found.  To  all  remonstrances  he  answered  with  a 

'  The  biographer  adds,  "  Ma  fu  si  horribile  e  spiacevole  a  vedere  che 
conturho  tutta  quella  festa,  lasciando  ogniuno  pieno  di  amaritudinc." 


288  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

solemnity  which  inspired  terror,  that  there  was  the  citi- 
zen's real  home.  At  the  end  of  ten  years  spent  in 
self-abasement  of  this  sort,  Jacopone  entered  the  low- 
est rank  of  the  Franciscan  brotherhood.  The  com- 
position of  a  Laud  so  full  of  spiritual  fire  that  its 
inspiration  seemed  indubitable,  won  for  the  apparent 
madman  this  grace.  There  was  something  noble  in 
his  bearing,  even  though  his  actions  and  his  utterance 
proved  his  brain  distempered.  No  fear  of  hell  nor 
hope  of  heaven,  says  his  biographer,  but  God's  infinite 
goodness  and  beauty  impelled  him  to  embrace  the 
monastic  life  and  to  subject  himself  to  the  severest 
discipline.  Meditating  on  the  Divine  perfection,  he 
came  to  regard  himself  as  "  entirely  hideous,  vile  and 
stinking,  beyond  the  most  abominable  carrion."  It 
was  part  of  his  religious  exaltation  to  prove  this  to 
himself  by  ghastly  penances,  instead  of  seeking  to  ren- 
der his  body  a  fit  temple  for  God's  spirit  by  healthy 
and  clean  living.  He  had  a  carnal  partiality  for 
liver;  and  in  order  to  mortify  this  vile  affection  he 
procured  the  liver  of  a  beast  and  hung  it  in  his  cell. 
It  became  putrid,  swarmed  with  vermin,  and  infected 
the  convent  with  its  stench.  The  friars  discovered 
Jacopone  rejoicing  in  the  sight  and  odor  of  this 
corruption.  With  sound  good  sense  they  then  con- 
demned him  to  imprisonment  in  the  common  privies; 
but  he  rejoiced  in  this  punishment,  and  composed  one 
of  his  most  impassioned  odes  in  that  foul  place.  Still, 
though  he  was  clearly  mad,  he  had  the  soul  of  a 
Christian  and  a  poet.  His  ecstasies  were  not  always 
repugnant  to  our  sense  of  delicacy.  Contemplating 
the  wounds  of  Christ,  it  entered  into  his  heart  to 


y AGO  PONE'S   MADNESS.  289 

desire  all  suffering  which  it  could  be  possible  for  man 
to  undergo — the  pangs  of  all  the  souls  condemned  to 
purgatory,  the  torments  of  all  the  damned  in  hell,  the 
infinite  anguish  of  all  the  devils — if  only  by  this  bear- 
ing of  the  pains  of  others  he  might  be  made  like 
Christ,  and  go  at  length,  the  last  of  all  the  world,  to 
Paradise.  Not  only  the  passion  but  the  love  of  Jesus 
inflamed  him  with  indescribable  raptures.  He  spent 
whole  days  in  singing,  weeping,  groaning,  and  ejacula- 
tion. "  He  ran,"  says  the  biographer,  "  in  a  fury  of  love, 
and  under  the  impression  that  he  was  embracing  and 
clasping  Jesus  Christ,  would  fling  his  arms  about  a 
tree."  It  is  not  possible  to  imagine  more  potent  work- 
ings of  religious  insanity  in  a  distempered  and  at  the 
same  time  nobly-gifted  character.  That  obscene  anti- 
pathy to  nature  which  characterized  medieval  asceti- 
cism, becomes  poetic  in  a  lunatic  of  genius  like  Jaco- 
pone.  Nor  was  his  natural  acumen  blunted.  He 
discerned  how  far  the  Papacy  diverged  from  Chris- 
tianity in  practice,  and  assailed  Boniface  VIII.  with 
bitterest  invectives.  Among  other  prophetic  sayings 
ascribed  to  him,  we  find  this,  which  corresponds  most 
nearly  to  the  truth  of  history :  "  Pope  Boniface,  like  a 
fox  thou  didst  enter  on  the  Papacy,  like  a  wolf  thou 
reignest,  and  like  a  dog  shalt  thou  depart  from  it." 
For  his  free  speech  Boniface  had  him  sent  to  prison ; 
and  in  his  dungeon,  rejoicing,  Jacopone  composed  the 
finest  of  his  Canticles. 

Such  was  the  man  who  struck  the  key-note  of  re- 
ligious popular  poetry  in  Italy,  and  whose  Lauds  may 
be  regarded  as  the  germ  of  a  voluminous  literature. 
Passing  from  his  life  to  his  writings,  it  will  suffice  to 


290  RENAISSANCE   IN    ITALY. 

give  a  few  specimens  of  those  hymns  which  are  most 
characteristic  of  his  temper.  We  have  already  seen 
how  he  brought  together  the  most  repulsive  details  of 
disease  in  order  to  express  his  desire  to  suffer  with 
Christ.1  Here  is  the  beginning  of  a  canticle  in  praise 
of  the  madness  he  embraced  with  a  similar  object3: 

Senno  me  pare  e  cortesia 

empazir  per  lo  bel  messia. 
Ello  me  fa  si  gran  sapere 

a  chi  per  dio  vol  empazire 

en  parige  non  se  vidde 

ancor  si  gran  phylosofia. 

These  words  found  an  echo  after  many  years  in  Beni- 
vieni's  even  more  hysterical  hymn  upon  divine  mad 
ness,  which  was  substituted  in  Savonarola's  Carnivals 
for  the  Trionfi  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici. 

A  trace  of  the  Franciscan  worship  of  poverty  gives 
some  interest  to  a  hymn  on  the  advantages  of  pauper- 
ism. The  theme,  however,  is  supported  with  solid 
arguments  after  the  fashion  of  Juvenal's  vacuus  viator*'. 

Povertate  muore  en  pace, 

nullo  testamento  face, 

lassa  el  mondo  como  jace 

e  la  gente  concordate. 
Non  a  judice  ne  notaro 

a  corte  non  porta  salaro, 

ridese  del  omo  avaro 

che  sta  en  tanta  anxietate. 

Truer  to  the  inebriation  of  Jacopone's  piety  are  the 
following  stanzas,  incoherent  from  excess  of  passion, 
which  seem  to  be  the  ebullition  of  one  of  his  most 
frenzied  moments 4 : 

1  See  above,  p.  284.  The  seventeenth-century  editor  of  Jacoponc 
and  his  followers,  Tresatti,  has  justly  styled  this  repulsive  but  char 
acteristic  utterance,  "  invettiva  terribile  contro  di  se." 

»  Op.  cit.  p.  109.        >  Ibid.  p.  77.        «  Ibid.  p.  122.     See  Appendix 


HYMNS    OF    DIVINE    LOVE.  29! 

Amore  amore  che  si  mai  ferito 
altro  che  amore  non  posso  gridare, 
amore  amore  teco  so  unito 
altro  non  posso  che  te  abbracciare, 
amore  amore  forte  mai  rapito 
lo  cor  sempre  si  spande  per  amore 
per  te  voglio  pasmare:  Amor  ch'  io  teco  sia 
amor  per  cortesia:  Fammi  morir  d*  amore. 

Amor  amor  Jesu  so  gionto  aporto 
amor  amor  Jesu  tu  m'  ai  menato, 
amor  amor  Jesu  damme  conforto 
amor  amor  Jesu  si  m'  ai  enflammato, 
amor  amor  Jesu  pensa  lo  porto 
fammete  star  amor  sempre  abracciato, 
con  teco  trasformato:  En  vera  caritate 
en  somma  veritate:  De  trasformato  amore. 

Amor  amore  grida  tuttol  mondo 
amor  amore  omne  cosa  clama, 
amore  amore  tanto  se  profondo 
chi  piu  t'  abraccia  sempre  piu  t'  abrama, 
amor  amor  tu  se'  cerchio  rotondo 
con  tuttol  cor  chi  c*  entra  sempre  t'  ama, 
che  tu  se'  stame  e  trama:  chi  t'  ama  per  vestlre 
cusi  dolce  sentire:  Che  sempre  grida  amore. 

Amor  amor  Jesu  desideroso 
amor  voglio  morire  a  te  abracciando, 
amor  amor  Jesu  dolce  mio  sposo 
amor  amor  la  morte  1'ademando, 
amor  amor  Jesu  si  delectoso 
tu  me  t'  arendi  en  te  transformando, 
pensa  ch'  io  vo  pasmando:  Amor  non  so  o  me  sia 
Jesu  speranza  mia:  Abyssame  en  amore. 

A  still  more  mysterious  depth  is  sounded  in  another 
hymn  in  praise  of  self-annihilation — the  Nirvana  of 
asceticism l : 

Non  posso  esser  renato 
s'  io  en  me  non  so  morto, 
anichilato  en  tucto 

«  Ibid.  p.  45. 


2Q2  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

el  esser  conservare, 
del  nihil  glorioso 
nelom  ne  gusta  fructo, 
se  Dio  non  fal  conducto 
che  otn  non  cia  que  fare, 
o  glorioso  stare 
en  nihil  quietato, 
lontellecto  posato 
e  laffecto  dormirc. 

Ciocho  veduto  e  pensato 
tutto  e  feccia  e  bruttura 
pensando  de  laltura 
del  virtuoso  stato, 
nel  pelago  chio  veggio 
non  ce  so  notatura 
faro  somergitura 
del  om  che  anegato 
sommece  inarenato 
nonor  de  smesuranza 
vincto  de  labundanza 
del  dolce  mio  sire. 

One  of  Jacopone's  authentic  poems  so  far  detaches 
itself  in  character  and  composition  from  the  rest,  and 
is  so  important,  as  will  shortly  be  seen,  for  the  history 
of  Italian  dramatic  art,  that  it  demands  separate  con- 
sideration.1 It  assumes  the  form  of  dialogue  between 
Mary  and  Christ  upon  the  cross,  followed  by  the 
lamentation  of  the  Virgin  over  her  dead  Son.  A 
messenger  informs  the  Mother  that  Christ  has  been 
taken  prisoner: 

Donna  del  Paradiso, 

Lo  tuo  figliolo  e  priso, 

Jesu  Cristo  beato. 
Accurre,  donna,  e  vide 

Che  la  gente  1*  all  id  c; 

>  It  is  printed  in  Salviano's,  and  reproduced  in  Tresatti's  edition.  1 
have  followed  the  reading  offered  by  D*  Ancona,  Origini  del  Teatro. 
col.  i.  p.  142.  See  Translation  in  Appendix. 


PASSION-POETRY.  293 

Credo  che  Ho  s*  occide, 
Tanto  1'  on  flagellato. 

Attended  by  the  Magdalen,  whom  she  summons  to 
her  aid,  Mary  hurries  to  the  judgment-seat  of  Pilate, 
and  begs  for  mercy : 

O  Pilato,  non  fare 
'L  figlio  mio  tormentare, 
Ch'  io  te  posso  mostrare 
Como  a  torto  e  accusato. 

But  here  the  voices  of  the  Chorus,  representing  the 
Jewish  multitude,  are  heard: 

Crucifige,  crucifige ! 
Omo  che  se  fa  rege, 
Secondo  nostra  lege, 
Contradice  al  Senato. 

Christ  is  removed  to  the  place  of  suffering,  and  Mary 
cries : 

O  figlio,  figlio,  figlio, 

Figlio,  amoroso  figlio, 

Figlio,  chi  dk  consiglio 

Al  cor  mio  angustiato  ! 
Figlio,  occhi  giocondi, 

Figlio,  co*  non  rispondi  ? 

Figlio,  perche  t*  ascondi 

Dal  petto  o'  se'  lattato  ? 

They  show  her  the  cross : 

Madonna,  ecco  la  cruce 
Che  la  gente  1'  adduce, 
Ove  la  vera  luce 
De'  essere  levato. 

They  tell  her  how  Jesus  is  being  nailed  to  it,  sparing 
none  of  the  agonizing  details.  Then  she  exclaims : 


30,4  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

•  E  lo  comcncio  el  corrotto; 
Figliolo,  mio  deporto, 
Figlio,  chi  mi  t'  &  morto, 
Figlio  mio  delicato ! 
Meglio  averien  fatto 
Che  '1  cor  m*  avesser  tratto, 
Che  nella  croce  tratto 
Starci  desciliato. 

Jesus  now  breaks  silence,  and  comforts  her,  pointing 
out  that  she  must  live  for  His  disciples,  and  naming 
John.  He  dies,  and  she  continues  the  Corrotto^ : 

Figlio,  1*  alma  t'  e  uscita, 

Figlio  de  la  smarrita, 

Figlio  de  la  sparita, 

Figlio  [mio]  attossicato ! 
Figlio  bianco  e  vermiglio, 

Figlio  senza  simiglio, 

Figlio,  a  chi  m'  apiglio, 

Figlio,  pur  m'  hai  lassato  1 
Figlio  bianco  e  biondo. 

Figlio,  volto  jocondo, 

Figlio,  perchfi  t'  £  el  mondo, 

Figlio,  cusi  sprezato ! 
Figlio  dolce  e  piacente, 

Figlio  de  la  dolente, 

Figlio,  a  te  la  gente 

Malamente  trattato  t 
Joanne,  figlio  novello, 

Morto  e  lo  tuo  fratello; 

Sentito  aggio  '1  coltello 

Che  fo  profetizzato, 
Che  morto  &  figlio  e  mate, 

De  dura  morte  afferrate; 

Trovarsi  abbracciate 

Mate  e  figlio  a  un  cruciato. 

Upon  this  note  of  anguish  the  poem  closes.     It  is  con 
ducted  throughout  in  dialogue,  and  is  penetrated  with 

1  The  word  Corrotto,  used  by  Mary,  means  lamentation  for  the  dead 
It  corresponds  to  the  Greek  Threnos,  Corsican  Vocero,  Gaelic  Coronach 


TRESATTrS    COLLECTION.  395 

dramatic  energy.  For  Passion  Music  of  a  noble  and 
yet  flowing  type,  such  as  Pergolese  might  have  com- 
posed, it  is  still  admirably  adapted. 

Each  strophe  of  Fra  Jacopone's  Canticles  might 
be  likened  to  a  seed  cast  into  the  then  fertile  soil  of 
the  Franciscan  Order,  which  bore  fruit  a  thousand- fold 
in  its  own  kind  of  spiritual  poetry.  The  vast  collec- 
tion of  hymns,  published  by  Tresatti  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  bears  the  name  of  Jacopone,  and  incorporates 
his  genuine  compositions.1  But  we  must  regard  the 
main  body  of  the  work  as  rather  belonging  to  Jaco- 
pone's school  than  to  the  master.  Taken  collectively, 
these  poems  bear  upon  their  face  the  stamp  of  con- 
siderable age,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
their  editor  doubted  of  their  authenticity.  A  critical 
reader  of  the  present  time,  however,  discerns  in- 
numerable evidences  of  collaboration,  and  detects 
expansion  and  dilution  of  more  pregnant  themes  in 
the  copious  outpourings  of  this  cloistral  inspiration. 
What  the  Giotteschi  are  to  Giotto,  Tresatti 's  collec- 
tion is  to  Salviano's  imprint  of  Jacopone.  It  forms  a 

»  Le  Poesie  spirituali  del  Beato  Jacopone  da  Todi.  In  Venetia, 
appresso  Niccolb  Miserrimi,  MDCXVII.  The  book  is  a  thick  410,  con- 
sisting of  1,055  Pages.  closely  printed.  It  contains  a  voluminous  run- 
ning commentary.  The  editor,  Tresatti,  a  Minorite  Friar,  says  he  had 
extracted  211  Cantici  of  Jacopone  from  MSS.  belonging  to  his  Order, 
whereas  the  Roman  and  Florentine  editions,  taken  together,  contained 
102  in  all.  He  divides  them  into  seven  sections:  (i)  Satires,  (2)  Moral 
Songs,  (3)  Odes,  (4)  Penitential  Hymns,  (5)  The  Theory  of  Divine  Love, 
(6)  Spiritual  Love  Poems,  (7)  Spiritual  Secrets.  This  division  corre- 
sponds to  seven  stages  in  the  soul's  progress  toward  perfection.  The 
arrangement  is  excellent,  though  the  sections  in  some  places  interpene- 
trate. For  variety  of  subjects,  the  collection  is  a  kind  of  lyrical  encyclo- 
paedia, touching  all  needs  and  states  of  the  devout  soul.  It  might  supply 
material  for  meditation  through  a  lifetime  to  a  heart  in  harmony  with 
its  ascetic  and  erotically  enthusiastic  tone. 


2Q6  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

complete  manual  of  devotion,  framed  according  to  the 
spirit  of  S.  Francis.  In  its  pages  we  read  the  progress 
of  the  soul  from  a  state  of  worldliness  and  vice, 
through  moral  virtue,  into  the  outer  court  of  religious 
conviction.  Thence  we  pass  to  penitence  and  the  pro- 
found terror  of  sin.  Having  traversed  the  region  of 
purgatory  upon  earth,  we  are  introduced  to  the  theory 
of  Divine  Love,  which  is  reasoned  out  and  developed 
upon  themes  borrowed  from  each  previous  step  gained 
by  the  spirit  in  its  heavenward  journey.  Here  ends 
the  soul's  novitiate;  and  we  enter  on  a  realm  of 
ecstasy.  The  poet  bathes  in  an  illimitable  ocean  of 
intoxicating  love,  summons  the  images  of  sense  and 
makes  them  adumbrate  his  rapture  of  devotion,  repro- 
ducing in  a  myriad  modes  the  Oriental  metaphors  of 
the  soul's  marriage  to  Christ  suggested  by  the  Canticle 
of  Canticles.  A  final  grade  in  this  ascent  to  spiritual 
perfection  is  attained  in  the  closing  odes,  which  cele- 
brate annihilation — the  fusion  of  the  mortal  in  im- 
mortal personality,  the  bliss  of  beatific  vision,  Nirvana 
realized  on  earth  in  ecstasy  by  man.  At  this  final 
point  sense  swoons,  the  tongue  stammers,  language 
refuses  to  perform  her  office,  the  reason  finds  no  place, 
the  universe  is  whirled  in  spires  of  flame,  we  float  in 
waves  of  metaphor,  we  drown  in  floods  of  contempla- 
tion, the  whole  is  closed  with  an  O  Altitudo! 

It  is  not  possible  to  render  scantiest  justice  to  this 
extraordinary  monument  of  the  Franciscan  fervor  by 
any  extracts  or  descriptions.  Its  full  force  can  only  be 
felt  by  prolonged  and,  if  possible,  continuous  perusal. 
S.  Catherine  and  S.  Teresa  attend  us  while  we  read; 
and  when  the  book  is  finished,  we  feel,  perhaps  for  the 


ETHICAL    THEMES.  297 

first  time,  the  might,  the  majesty,  the  overmastering 
attraction  of  that  sea  of  faith  which  swept  all  Europe 
in  the  thirteenth  century.  We  understand  how  nau- 
fragar  in  questo  mar  fu  dolce. 

Though  the  task  is  ungrateful,  it  behooves  the  his- 
torian of  popular  Italian  poetry  to  extract  some 
specimens  from  this  immense  repertory  of  anonymous 
lyrics.  Omitting  the  satires,  which  are  composed 
upon  the  familiar  monastic  rubrics  of  vanity,  human 
misery,  the  loathsomeness  of  the  flesh,  and  contempt 
of  the  world,  I  will  select  one  stanza  upon  Chastity 
from  among  the  moral  songs1: 

OCastitabel  fiore, 
Che  ti  sostiene  amore. 

O  fior  di  Castitate, 
Odorifero  giglio, 
Con  gran  soavitate, 
Sei  di  color  vermiglio, 
Et  a  la  Trinitate 
Tu  ripresenti  odore. 

Chastity  in  another  place  is  thus  described2: — 

La  Castitate  pura, 
Piti  bella  che  viola, 
Cotanto  ha  chiaro  viso 
Che  par  un  paradiso. 

Poverty,  the  Cardinal  Virtues,  and  the  Theological 
Virtues  receive  their  full  meed  of  praise  in  a  succession 
of  hymns.  Then  comes  a  long  string  of  proverbs, 
which  contain  much  sober  wisdom,  with  passages  of 
poetic  feeling  like  the  following3: 

Li  pesciarelli  piccoli 
Scampan  la  rete  in  mare; 

1  Op.  tit.  p.  149.  a  Ibid.  p.  244.  a  Ibid,  p.  253. 


2g9  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Grand*  ucel  prende  1*  aquila, 
Non  pub  "1  moscon  pigliare; 
Enchinasi  la  vergola, 
L'  acqua  lassa  passare; 
Ma  fa  giu  cader  1'  arbore, 
Che  non  si  pub  inchinare. 

Among  the  odes  we  may  first  choose  this  portion 
of  a  carol  written  to  be  sung  before  the  manger,  or 
presepe,  which  it  was  usual  to  set  up  in  churches  at 
Christmas1: 

Veggiamo  il  suo  Bambino 
Gammettare  nel  fieno, 
E  le  braccia  scoperte 
Porgere  ad  ella  in  seno, 
Ed  essa  lo  ricopre 
El  meglio  che  pub  almeno, 
Mettendoli  la  poppa 
Entro  la  sua  bocchina. 

Cioppava  lo  Bambino 
Con  le  sue  labbruccia; 
Sol  la  dolciata  cioppa 
Volea,  non  minestruccia; 
Stringeala  con  la  bocca 
Che  non  avea  dentuccia, 
II  figliuolino  bello, 
Ne  la  dolce  bocchina. 

A  la  sua  man  manca, 
Cullava  lo  Bambino, 
E  con  sante  carole 

I  Nenciava  il  suo  amor  fino  .  .  . 

Gli  Angioletti  d'  intorno 
Se  ne  gian  danzando, 
Facendo  dolci  versi 
E  d*  amor  favellando. 

There  is  a  fresco  by  Giotto  behind  the  altar  in  the 
Arena  Chapel  at  Padua,  which  illustrates  part  of  this 
hymn.  A  picture  attributed  to  Botticelli  in  our 

i  Op.  fit.  p.  266.    See  Translation  in  Appendix. 


THEMES   OF  PASSION  AND    TERROR.  299 

National  Gallery  illustrates  the  rest.  The  spirit  of  the 
carol  has  been  reproduced  with  less  sincerity  in  a 
Jesuit's  Latin  hymn,  Dormi,jilit  dormi,  mater. 

Close  upon  the  joys  of  Mary  follow  her  sorrows 
The  following  is  a  popular  echo  of  the  Stabat  Mater1: 

Or  si  incomincia  lo  duro  pianto 
Che  fa  la  Madre  di  Christo  tanto; 
Or  intendete  1*  amaro  canto, 
Fu  crocifisso  quel  capo  santo. 

Ma  quando  che  s'  inchiodava, 
Presso  al  figliuolo  la  Madre  stava; 
Quando  a  la  croce  gli  occhi  levava, 
Per  troppa  doglia  ci  trangosciava. 

La  Madre  viddelo  incoronato, 
Et  ne  la  croce  tutto  piagato, 
Per  le  pene  e  pel  sangue  versato 
Sitibondo  gridar  Consummato. 

Many  of  the  odes  are  devoted  to  S.  Francis.  One 
passage  recording  the  miracle  of  the  Stigmata  deserves 
to  be  extracted3: 

La  settima  a  Lavcrna, 
Stando  in  orazione, 
Nc  la  parte  superna, 
Con  gran  divozione, 
Mirabil  visione 
Seraphin  apparuto 
Crucifisso  e  veduto, 
Con  sei  ale  mostrato: 

Incorporotti  stimmate 
A  lato  piedi  e  mano; 
Duro  gik  fora  a  credere 
Se  nol  contiam  di  piano, 
Staendo  vivo  et  sano 
Mold  1*  ban  mirate. 
L'  ha  morte  dichiarate, 
Da  molti  fu  palpato. 

»  Op.  cit.  p.  306.  *  Ibid.  p.  343. 


300  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

La  sua  carne  bianchiasixna 
Pareva  puerile; 
Avanti  era  brunissima 
Per  gli  freddi  nevili; 
La  fe  amor  si  gentile, 
Parea  glorificata, 
Da  ogni  gente  amtnirata 
Del  mirabil  ornato. 

The  Penitential  Hymns  resound  with  trumpets  of 
Judgment  and  groans  of  lost  souls.  There  is  one 
terrible  lament  of  a  man  who  repented  after  death; 
another  of  one  arising  from  the  grave,  damned.^  The 
Day  of  Judgment  inspires  stanzas  heavy  with  lugu- 
brious chords  and  a  leaden  fall2: 

Tutta  la  terra  tornera  a  niente, 
Le  pietre  piangeranno  duramente, 
Conturbaronsi  tutti  i  monumente, 
Per  la  sententia  di  Dio  onnipotente 
Che  tutti  sentiranno. 

Allora  udrai  dal  cicl  trombe  sonare, 
Et  tutti  morti  vedrai  suscitare, 
Avanti  al  tribunal  di  Christo  andare, 
E  1  fuoco  ardente  per  1*  aria  volare 
Con  gran  velocitate. 


Porgine  aiuto,  alto  Signer  verace, 

E  campane  da  quel  foco  penace, 

E  danne  penitentia  si  verace 

Che  "n  ciel  possiam  venir  a  quella  pace 

Dove  in  eterno  regni. 

This  is   the   Dies   Ira  adapted   for   the   people,  and 
expanded  in  its  motives. 

The  exposition  and  the  expression  of  Divine  Love 
occupy  a  larger  space  than  any  other  section  of  the 

J  Op.  cit.  pp.  416,  420  *  Ibid.  p.  433. 


ECSTATIC   RAPTURE.  301 

series.  Mystical  psychology,  elaborated  with  scho- 
lastic subtlety  of  argument  and  fine  analysis  of  all  the 
grades  of  feeling,  culminates  in  lyric  raptures,  only  less 
chaotic  than  the  stanzas  already  quoted  from  Jaco- 
pone.  The  poet  breaks  out  into  short  ejaculations1: 

O  alta  Nichilitate, 
Dhe  mi  di  dove  tu  stai ! 

He  faints  and  swoons  before  the  altar  in  the  languors 
of  emotion2: 

Languisco  per  amore 
Di  Gesti  mio  Amatore. 

We  see  before  our  eyes  the  trances  of  S.  Catherine,  so 
well  portrayed  with  sensuous  force  by  Sodoma.  Then 
he  resumes  the  Song  of  Solomon  in  stanzas  to  be 
counted  by  the  hundred,  celebrates  the  marriage  of 
Christ  and  the  soul,  or  seeks  crude  carnal  metaphors 
to  convey  his  meaning3: 

Del  tuo  bacio,  amore, 
Degnami  di  baciare. 

Dhe  baciami,  dolcezza 
Di  contrizione, 
Et  dolce  soavezza 
Di  compunzione, 
O  santa  allegrezza 
Di  devozione, 
Per  nulla  stagione 
Non  m"  abandonare. 

Poi  che  '1  bacio  sento, 
Bevo  a  le  mammelle 
C  hanno  odore  d*  unguento; 
Pur  le  tue  scintilla 
A  bever  non  so  lento 
Con  le  mie  maxille, 
Piil  che  volte  mille 
Vb  me  inebriare. 

'  Op.  fit.  p.  703.  »  Ibid.  p.  741.  a  Ibid.  p.  715. 


302  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Let  this  suffice.  With  the  language  of  sweetness  and 
monastic  love  we  are  soon  surfeited.  Were  it  not 
that  the  crescendo  of  erotic  exaltation  ends  at  last  in 
a  jubilee  of  incomprehensible  passion,  blending  the 
incoherence  of  delirium  with  fragments  of  theosophy 
which  might  have  been  imported  from  old  Alexandrian 
sources  or  from  dim  regions  of  the  East,  a  student  of 
our  century  would  shrink  aghast  from  some  of  these 
hermaphroditic  hymns,  as  though  he  had  been  witness 
of  wild  acts  of  nympholepsy  in  a  girl  he  reckoned 
sane. 

Through  the  two  centuries  which  followed  Jaco- 
pone's  death  (1306?)  the  Lauds  of  the  Confraternities 
continued  to  form  a  special  branch  of  popular  poetry ; 
and  in  the  fifteenth  century  they  were  written  in 
considerable  quantities  by  men  of  polite  education. 
Like  all  hymns,  these  spiritual  songs  are  less  re- 
markable for  literary  quality  than  devoutness.  It  is 
difficult  to  find  one  rising  to  the  height  of  Jacopone's 
inspiration.  Many  of  the  later  compositions  even 
lack  religious  feeling,  and  seem  to  have  been  written 
as  taskwork.  Those,  for  example,  by  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici  bear  the  same  relation  to  his  Canti  Camascia- 
leschi  as  Pontano's  odes  to  the  Saints  bear  to  his 
elegies  and  Baian  lyrics.  This  was  inevitable  in  an 
age  saturated  with  the  adverse  ideals  of  the  classical 
Revival,  when  Platonic  theism  threatened  to  supplant 
Christianity,  and  society  was  clogged  with  frigid 
cynicism.  Yet  even  in  the  sixteenth  century,  those 
hymns  which  came  directly  from  the  people's  heart, 
thrilling  with  the  strong  vibrations  of  Savonarola's 
preaching,  are  still  remarkable  for  almost  frantic  piety. 


BENIVIENrs  LAUDS.  303 

Among  the  many  Florentine  hymn-writers  who  felt 
that  influence,  Girolamo  Benivieni  holds  the  most 
distinguished  place,  both  for  the  purity  of  his  style 
and  for  the  sincerity  of  his  religious  feeling.  I  will 
set  side  by  side  two  versions  from  his  book  of  Lauds, 
illustrating  the  extreme  limits  of  devout  emotion — the 
calmness  of  a  meditative  piety  and  the  spasms  of 
passionate  enthusiasm.  The  first  is  a  little  hymn  to 
Jesus,  profoundly  felt  and  expressed  with  exquisite 
simplicity l : 

Jesus,  whoso  with  Thee 
Hangs  not  in  pain  and  loss 
Pierced  on  the  cruel  cross, 
At  peace  shall  never  be. 

Lord,  unto  me  be  kind: 
Give  me  that  peace  of  mind, 
Which  in  this  world  so  blind 
And  false  dwells  but  with  Thee. 

Give  me  that  strife  and  pain, 
Apart  from  which  'twere  vain 
Thy  love  on  earth  to  gain 
Or  seek  a  share  in  Thee. 

It,  Lord,  with  Thee  alone 
Heart's  peace  and  love  be  known, 
My  heart  shall  be  Thine  own, 
Ever  to  rest  with  Thee. 

Here  in  my  heart  be  lit 
Thy  fire,  to  feed  on  it, 
Till  burning  bit  by  bit 
It  dies  to  live  with  Thee. 

Jesus,  whoso  with  Thee 
Hangs  not  in  pain  or  loss, 
Pierced  on  the  cruel  cross, 
At  peace  shall  never  be. 

1  Opere  di  Girolamo  Benivieni  (Venegia,  G.  de  Gregori,  1524),  p.  151 


304  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

The  second  is  an  echo  of  Jacopone's  eulogy  of  mad- 
ness, prolonged  and  developed  with  amorous  extrava- 
gance l : 

Never  was  there  so  sweet  a  gladness, 
Joy  of  so  pure  and  strong  a  fashion, 
As  with  zeal  and  love  and  passion 
Thus  to  embrace  Christ's  holy  madness. 

They  who  are  mad  in  Jesus,  slight 
All  that  the  wise  man  seeks  and  prizes; 
Wealth  and  place,  pomp,  pride,  delight, 
Pleasure  and  fame,  their  soul  despises: 
Sorrow  and  tears  and  sacrifices, 
Poverty,  pain,  and  low  estate, 
All  that  the  wise  men  loathe  and  hate, 
Are  sought  by  the  Christian  in  his  madness. 

They  who  are  fools  for  Christ  in  heaven, 
Should  they  be  praised  peradventure,  mourn, 
Seeing  the  praise  that  to  them  is  given 
Was  taken  from  God;  but  hate  and  scorn 
With  joy  and  gladness  of  soul  are  borne: 
The  Christian  listens  and  smiles  for  glee 
When  he  hears  the  taunt  of  his  foe,  for  he 
Glories  and  triumphs  in  holy  madness. 

Many  collections  of  Lauds  were  early  committed 
to  the  press;  and  of  these  we  have  an  excellent 
modern  reprint  in  the  Laude  spirituali  di  Feo  Belcart 
t  di  altri,  which  includes  hymns  by  Castellano  Cas- 
tdlani,  Bernardo  Giambullari,  Francesco  Albizzi,  Lo- 
renzo de'  Medici,  Lucrezia  Tornabuoni,  and  the  Pulci 
brothers.2  Studying  this  miscellany,  we  perceive  that 
between  the  Laude  and  Ballate  of  the  people  there  is 

>  Qp.  cit.  p.  143.  I  have  only  translated  the  opening  stanzas  of  this 
hymn. 

»  Published  at  Florence  by  Molini  and  Cecchi,  1863.  Compare  the 
two  collections  printed  by  Prof.  G.  Ferraro  from  Ferrarese  MSS.  Poesit 
i  religiose  del  secolo  xiv.  Bologna,  Romagnoli,  1877. 


HYMNS   AND   DANCE-SONGS.  305 

often  little  but  a  formal  difference.  Large  numbers  are 
parodies  of  amatory  or  obscene  songs,  beginning  with 
nearly  the  same  words  and  intended  to  be  sung  to  the 
same  tunes.  Thus  the  famous  ballad,  O  vaghe  mon- 
tanine  e pastorelle  becomes  O  vaghe  di  Gesil,  o  verginelle. * 
The  direction  for  singing  Crucifisso  a  capo  china  is 
Cantasi  come — Una  donna  di  fino  amore,  which  was 
a  coarse  street  song  in  vogue  among  the  common  folk.2 
Vergine,  alia  regina,  is  modeled  upon  Galantina, 
morosina;  /'  son  quella  pecorella  upon  /'  son  quella 
villanella;  Giu  per  la  mala  via  Vanima  mia  ne  va  on 
Giu  per  la  villa  lunga  la  bella  se  ne  va. 3  Others  are 
imitations  of  carnival  choruses  noted  for  their  gross- 
ness  and  lewd  innuendoes. 4  It  is  clear  that  the  Laudesi, 
long  before  the  days  of  Rowland  Hill,  discerned  the 
advantage  of  not  letting  the  devil  have  all  the  good 
tunes.  Other  parallels  between  the  Florentine  Lauds 
and  the  revival  hymns  of  the  present  century  might  be 
pointed  out.  Yet  in  proportion  as  the  Italian  religious 
sentiment  is  more  sensuous  and  erotic  than  that  of 
the  Teutonic  nations,  so  are  the  Lauds  more  unre- 
servedly emotional  than  the  most  audacious  utterances 
of  American  or  English  Evangelicalism.  As  an 
excellent  Italian  critic  has  recently  observed,  the 
amorous  and  religious  poems  of  the  people  were  only 
distinguished  by  the  difference  of  their  object.  Ex- 
pression, versification,  melody,  pitch  of  sentiment, 
remained  unaltered.  "  Men  sang  the  same  strambottt 
to  the  Virgin  and  the  lady  of  their  love,  to  the  rose 

1  Laude,  etc  p.  105. 

a  Op.  cit.  p.  1 6.     See  Carteont  a  Ballo,  etc.  (Firenze,  1568),  p.  30, 
•or  this  song 

»  Op  cit.  pp.  96,  227,  50.        «  See  op.  cit.  pp.  227.  234,  and  passim 


306  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY, 

of  Jericho  and  the  red  rose  of  the  balcony."1  No 
notion  of  impropriety  seems  to  have  been  suggested 
by  this  confusion  of  divergent  feelings.  Otherwise, 
Savonarola  would  hardly  have  suffered  his  proselytes 
to  roam  the  streets  chanting  stanzas  which  are  little 
better  than  echoes  from  the  brothel  or  travesties  of 
Poliziano's  chorus  of  the  Maenads.  The  Italians  have 
never  been  pious  in  the  same  sense  as  the  Northern 
nations.  Their  popular  religious  poetry  is  the  lyric  of 
emotion,  the  lyric  of  the  senses  losing  self-restraint  in 
an  outpouring  of  voluptuous  ecstasy.  With  them 
"  music  is  a  love-lament  or  a  prayer  addressed  to  God ; " 
and  both  constituents  of  music  blend  and  mingle  in- 
distinguishably  in  their  hymns.  As  they  lack  the 
sublime  Chorales  of  the  Reformation  period  in  Ger- 
many, so  they  lack  the  grave  and  meditative  psalms  for 
which  Bach  made  his  melodies. 

The  origins  of  the  Italian  theater  were  closely 
connected  with  the  services  of  the  Laudesi.  And 
here  it  has  to  be  distinctly  pointed  out  that  the  evo- 
lution of  the  Sacred  Drama  in  Italy  followed  a  dif- 
ferent course  from  that  with  which  we  are  familiar  in 
France  and  England.  Miracle-plays  and  Mysteries, 
properly  so  called,  do  not  appear  to  have  been  common 
among  the  Italians  in  the  early  middle  ages.  There 
is,  indeed,  one  exception  to  this  general  statement 
which  warns  us  to  be  cautious,  and  which  proves  that 
the  cyclical  sacred  play  had  been  exhibited  at  least  in 
one  place  at  a  very  early  date.  At  Cividale,  in  the 
district  of  Friuli,  a  Ludus  Christi,  embracing  the 
principal  events  of  Christian  history  from  the  Passion 

1  Carducci,  Dello  Svolgimento  della  Letteratura  Nazionalc,  p.  90. 


MIRACLE    PLAYS.  307 

to  the  Second  Advent,  was  twice  acted,  in  1298  and 
1303.  From  the  scanty  notices  concerning  it,  we  are 
able  to  form  an  opinion  that  it  lasted  over  three  days, 
that  it  was  recited  by  the  clergy,  almost  certainly  in 
Latin,  and  that  the  representation  did  not  take  place 
in  church.1  The  Friulian  Ludi  Christi  were,  in  fact, 
a  Mystery  of  the  more  primitive  type,  corresponding 
to  Greban's  Mysttre  de  la  Passion  and  to  our  Coventry 
or  Widkirk  Miracles.  But,  so  far  as  present  know- 
ledge goes,  this  sacred  play  was  an  isolated  phenome- 
non, and  proved  unfruitful  of  results.  We  are  only 
able  to  infer  from  it,  what  the  close  intercourse  of  the 
Italians  with  the  French  would  otherwise  make  evi- 
dent, that  Mysteries  were  not  entirely  unknown  in  the 
Peninsula.  Yet  it  seems  clear,  upon  the  other  hand, 
that  the  two  forms  of  the  sacred  drama  specific  to 
Italy,  the  Umbrian  Divozione  and  the  Florentine  Sacra 
Rappresentazione,  were  not  a  direct  outgrowth  from  the 
Mystery.  We  have  to  trace  their  origin  in  the  reli- 
gious practices  of  the  Laudesi,  from  which  a  species  of 
dramatic  performance  was  developed,  and  which  placed 
the  sacred  drama  in  the  hands  of  these  lay  confra- 
ternities. 

At  first  the  Disciplinati  di  Gesil  intoned  their 
Lauds  in  the  hall  of  the  Company,  standing  before  the 
crucifix  or  tabernacle  of  a  saint,  as  they  are  represented 
in  old  wood-cuts.2  From  simple  singing  they  passed 
to  antiphonal  chanting,  and  thence  made  a  natural 
transition  to  dialogue,  and  lastly  to  dramatic  action. 

1  See  Muratori,  Rer.  Ital.  Script,  xxiv.  1205,  and  ibid.  1209,  Friuliar 
Chronicle. 

*  See  the  frontispiece  to  Laudt  di  Feo  Belcari  t  di  altri. 


308  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

To  trace  the  steps  of  this  progress  is  by  no  means 
easy ;  nor  must  we  imagine  that  it  was  effected  wholly 
within  the  meeting-places  of  the  confraternities  without 
external  influence.  Though  the  Italians  may  not  have 
brought  the  Miracle-play  to  the  perfection  it  attained 
among  the  Northern  nations,  they  were,  as  we  have 
seen,  undoubtedly  aware  of  its  existence.  Further- 
more, they  were  familiar  with  ecclesiastical  shows  but 
little  removed  in  character  from  that  form  of  medieval 
art.  Representations  of  the  manger  at  Bethlehem 
made  part  of  Christmas  ceremonies  in  Umbria,  as  we 
learn  from  a  passage  in  the  works  of  S.  Bonaventura 
referring  to  the  year  I223.1  Nor  were  occasions 
wanting  when  pageants  enlivened  the  ritual  of  the 
Church.  Among  liturgical  dramas,  enacted  by  priests 
and  choristers  at  service  time,  may  be  mentioned  the 
descent  of  the  Angel  Gabriel  at  the  feast  of  the 
Annunciation,  the  procession  of  the  Magi  at  Epiphany, 
the  descent  of  the  dove  at  Pentecost,  and  the  Easter 
representation  of  a  sepulcher  from  which  the  body  of 
Christ  had  been  removed.  Thus  the  Laudesi  found 
precedents  in  the  Liturgy  itself  for  introducing  a 
dramatic  element  into  their  offices. 

Having  assumed  a  more  or  less  dramatic  form,  the 
Laud  acquired  the  name  of  Divozione  as  early  as  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  It  was  written  in 
various  lyric  meters,  beginning  with  six-lined  stanzas 
in  ottonari,  passing  through  hendecasyllabic  sesta 
rima,  and  finally  settling  down  into  ottava  rima,  which 
became  the  common  stanza  for  all  forms  of  popular 

'  D*  Ancona,  Or.  del  T.  op.  cit.  voL  i.  p.  109. 


DIVOZIONL  309 

poetry  in  the  fifteenth  century.1  The  passion  of  our 
Lord  formed  the  principal  theme  of  the  Divozioni;  for 
the  Laudesi  were  bound  by  their  original  constitution 
to  a  special  contemplation  of  His  suffering  upon  the 
cross  for  sinners.  The  Perugian  Chronicles  refer  to 
compositions  of  this  type  under  the  name  of  Corrotto, 
or  song  of  mourning.  In  its  highest  form  it  was  the 
passionate  outpouring  of  Mary's  anguish  over  her 
crucified  Son — the  counterpart  in  poetry  to  the  Piefa 
of  painting,  for  which  the  Giottesque  masters,  the 
Umbrian  school,  Crivelli,  and  afterwards  Mantegna, 
reserved  the  strongest  exhibition  of  their  powers  as 
dramatists.  We  have  already  seen  with  what  a  noble 
and  dramatic  dialogue  Jacopone  da  Todi  initiated  this 
species  of  composition.2  At  the  same  time,  the 
Divozioni  and  the  Lauds  from  which  they  sprang, 
embraced  a  wide  variety  of  subjects,  following  the 
passages  of  Scripture  appointed  to  be  read  in  church 
on  festivals  and  Sundays.  Thus  the  Laud  for  Advent 
dramatized  the  Apocalypse  and  introduced  the  episode 
of  Antichrist.  The  story  of  the  Prodigal  furnished  a 
theme  for  the  vigil  when  that  parable  was  used.  It 
was  customary  to  sing  these  compositions  in  the 
oratories  after  the  discipline  of  the  confraternity  had 
been  duly  performed;  and  that  they  were  sung,  is  a 

1  The  phases  of  this  progress  from  oftonariio  ottava  rima  have  been 
carefully  traced  by  D'  Ancona  (op.  cit.  vol.  i.  pp.  151-165).  Ottonan 
are  lines  of  eight  syllables  with  a  loose  trochaic  rhythm,  in  which  great 
licenses  of  extra  syllables  are  allowed.  The  stanza  rhymes  a  b  a  b  c  c. 
The  sesta  rima  of  the  transition  has  the  same  rhyming  structure.  The 
Corrotto  by  Jacopone  da  Todi,  analyzed  above,  shows  a  similar  system 
of  rhymes  to  that  of  some  Latin  hymns:  aaabcccb,  the  b  rhyme  in 
ato  being  carried  through  the  whole  poem. 

*  See  above,  pp.  292-294,  and  Appendix. 


310  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

fact  of  importance  which  must  never  be  forgotten 
Every  Company  had  its  own  collection  of  dramatic 
Lauds,  forming  a  cycle  of  sacred  melodramas,  com- 
posed with  no  literary  end  and  no  theatrical  effect  in 
view,  but  with  the  simple  purpose  of  expressing  by 
dialogue  the  substance  of  a  Scripture  narrative. 

An  inventory  of  the  Perugian  Confraternity  of 
S.  Domenico,  dated  in  the  year  1339,  includes  wings 
and  crowns  for  sixty-eight  angels,  masks  for  devils,  a 
star  for  the  Magi,  a  crimson  robe  for  Christ,  black 
veils  for  the  Maries,  two  lay  figures  of  thieves,  a  dove 
to  symbolize  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  coat  of  mail  for 
Longinus,  and  other  properties  which  prove  that  not 
Passion-plays  alone  but  dramas  suited  to  Epiphany, 
Pentecost  and  the  Annunciation  must  have  been  enacted 
at  that  period.  Yet  we  have  no  exact  means  of  ascer- 
taining when  the  Laudesi  left  their  oratories  and  began 
to  recite  Divozioni  with  action  in  church  or  on  the 
open  square.  The  Compagnia  del  Gonfalone  are  said 
to  have  presented  a  play  to  the  Roman  people  in  the 
Coliseum  in  1260;  but  though  the  brotherhood  was 
founded  in  that  year,  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether 
their  famous  Passion  dates  from  so  early  an  epoch.1 
By  the  year  1376  it  had  become  customary  for  Laudest 
to  give  representations  in  church,  accompanied  by  a 
sermon  from  the  pulpit.  The  audience  assembled  in 
the  nave,  and  a  scaffold  was  erected  along  the  screen 

«  D'  Ancona,  op.  cit.  p.  108.  At  p.  282  he  gives  some  curious  details 
relating  to  the  Coliseum  Passion  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
In  1539  it  was  suppressed  by  Paul  III.,  because  the  Romans,  infuriated 
by  the  drama  of  the  Crucifixion,  were  wont  to  adjourn  from  the  Flavian 
amphitheater  to  the  Ghetto,  and  begin  a  murderous  crusade  against 
the  Jews ! 


THE    STAGE   IN  CHURCH.  311 

which  divided  the  nave  and  transepts  from  the  choir. 
Here  the  brethren  played  their  pieces,  while  the 
preacher  at  appropriate  intervals  addressed  the  peo- 
ple, explaining  what  they  were  about  to  see  upon  the 
stage  or  commenting  on  what  had  been  performed.1 
The  actors  were  the  Chorus,  the  preacher  the  Chore  - 
gus.  The  stage  was  technically  called  talamo?  It  had 
a  large  central  compartment,  corresponding  to  the 
"  Logeion  "  of  the  Attic  theater,  with  several  smaller 
rooms  termed  luoghi  deputati,  and  galleries  above  re- 
served for  the  celestial  personages.  The  actors  en- 
tered from  a  central  and  two  side  doors  called  reggi. 
These  Umbrian  Divozioni  form  a  link  between  the 
Laud  of  the  thirteenth  and  the  Sacra  Rappresentazione 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  They  still — in  form  at  least, 
if  not  in  sacred  character — survive  in  the  Maggi  of 
the  Tuscan  peasantry,  which  are  yearly  acted  among 
the  villages  of  the  Lucchese  and  Pistojese  highlands. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  we  are  justified  in  regard- 
ing them  as  wholly  different  in  type  from  the  Northern 
Miracle-plays.  That  they  originated  in  the  oratories 
of  lay  brotherhoods,  and  that  they  retained  the  char- 
acter of  Lauds  to  be  sung  after  they  had  assumed 
dramatic  shape,  may  be  reckoned  as  established  points. 
Moreover,  they  lack  the  cyclical  extension  and  the 
copious  admixture  of  grotesquely  comic  elements  which 

1  In  the  directions  for  a  "  Devotione  de  Veneredi  sancto,"  analyzed 
by  D'  Ancona  (op.  cit.  pp.  176-182),  we  read:  "predict,  e  como  fa  sig.to 
che  Cristo  sia  posto  in  croce,  li  Judei  li  chiavano  una  mano  e  poi  1"  altra" 
.  ..."  a  quello  loco  quando  Pilato  comanda  che  Cristo  sia  posto  a  la 
colona,  lo  Predicatore  tase" 

«  Ducange  explains  thalamum  by  tabulatum. 

3  See  Appendix  to  vol.  ii.  of  D'  Ancona's  Origin.i  del  Tea.tro. 


312  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

mark  the  French  and  English  Mysteries.  Yet  we  have 
already  seen  that  such  Mysteries  were  not  entirely 
unknown  in  Italy,  and  that  the  liturgical  drama,  per- 
formed by  ecclesiastics,  had  been  from  early  times  a 
part  of  Church  ceremonial  on  holy  days.  We  are, 
therefore,  justified  in  accepting  the  Divozioni  as  the 
Italian  species  of  a  genus  which  was  common  to  the 
medieval  nations.  The  development  of  Gothic  archi- 
tecture in  Central  Italy  might  furnish  an  illustration. 
Its  differentiation  from  the  grander  and  more  perfect 
type  of  French  and  English  Gothic  does  not  constitute 
a  separate  style. 

To  bridge  the  interval  between  the  Divozione,  used 
in  Umbria,  and  the  Sacra  Rappresentazione,  as  it 
appeared  at  Florence,  is  rendered  impossible  by  the 
present  lack  of  documents.  Still  there  seems  sufficient 
reason  to  believe  that  the  latter  was  evolved  from  the 
former  within  the  precincts  of  the  confraternities.  In 
the  Sacra  Rappresentazione  the  religious  drama  of  Italy 
reached  its  highest  point  of  development,  and  produced 
a  form  of  art  peculiar  to  Florence  and  the  Tuscan 
cities.  Though  it  betrays  certain  affinities  to  the 
Northern  Miracle-play,  which  prove  familiarity  with 
the  French  Mysfkres  on  the  part  at  least  of  some 
among  the  playwrights,  it  is  clearly  a  distinct  kind. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  Umbrian  Divozioni,  so  here  the 
absence  of  grotesque  episodes  is  striking;  nor  do  we 
find  connected  series  of  Sacre  Rappresentazioni,  em- 
bracing the  Christian  history  in  a  cyclical  dramatic 
work.  This  species  flourished  for  about  fifty  years, 
from  1470  to  1 5  20.  These  dates  are  given  approxi- 
mately; for  though  we  know  that  the  Sacred  Drama 


SACRE    RAPPRESENTAZIONI.  313 

of  Florence  did  not  long  survive  the  second  decade  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  we  cannot  ascertain  the  period 
of  its  origin.  The  Sacre  Rappresentazioni  we  possess 
in  print,  almost  all  written  within  the  last  thirty  years 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  present  so  marked  a  similarity 
of  style  and  structure  that  they  must  have  been  pre- 
ceded by  a  series  of  experiments  which  fixed  and  con- 
ventionalized their  form.  Like  the  Divozioni,  they 
were  in  the  hands  of  confraternities,  who  caused  them 
to  be  acted  at  their  own  expense.  Since  these  Com- 
panies were  wealthy,  and  included  members  of  the  best 
Florentine  families,  their  plays  were  put  upon  the 
stage  with  pomp.  The  actors  were  boys  belonging  to 
the  brotherhoods,  directed  by  a  Chorodidascalus  called 
Festajuolo.  S.  Antonino,  the  good  archbishop,  promoted 
the  custom  of  enrolling  youths  of  all  classes  in  religious 
Companies,  seeking  by  such  influences  to  encourage 
sound  morality  and  sober  living.  The  most  fashion- 
able brotherhoods  were  those  of  San  Bastiano  or  Del 
Freccione,  Del  Vangelista  or  Dell'  Aquila,  Dell'  Arcan- 
gelo  RafTaello  or  Delia  Scala — the  name  of  the  saint 
or  his  ensign  being  indifferently  used.  Representations 
took  place  either  in  the  oratory  of  the  Company,  or  in 
the  refectory  of  a  convent.  Meadows  at  Fiesole  and 
public  squares  were  also  chosen  for  open-air  perform- 
ances. *  The  libretti  were  composed  in  octave  stanzas, 
with  passages  of  terza  rima,  and  were  sung  to  a  reci- 
tative air.  Interludes  of  part-songs,  with  accompani- 

1  In  the  prologues  of  the  later  comedies  of  learning  (commedia  eru- 
•hta)  allusions  to  the  rude  style  of  Fiesolan  shows  are  pretty  frequent. 
The  playwrights  speak  of  them  as  our  Elizabethan  dramatists  spoke  ot 
Bartholomew  Fair.  The  whole  method  of  a  Fiesolan  Sacra  Rappresen- 
tazione  is  well  explained  in  the  induction  to  the  play  of  Abraam  e  Sara 


314  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

ment  of  lute  and  viol,  enlivened  the  simple  cantilena , 
and  there  is  no  doubt,  from  contemporary  notices,  that 
this  music  was  of  the  best.  The  time  selected  was 
usually  after  vespers.  The  audience  were  admitted 
free  of  cost,  but  probably  by  invitation  only  to  the 
friends  and  relatives  of  the  young  actors.  Sacra 
Rappresentazione  was,  the  generic  name  of  the  show; 
but  we  meet  with  these  subordinate  titles,  Festa,  Mis- 
tero,  Storia,  Vangelo^  Figura,  Esemplo,  Passione,  Mar- 
tirio,  Miracolo,  according  to  the  special  subject-matter 
of  the  play  in  question. 

D'Ancona,  in  his  book  on  the  Origins  of  the  Italian 
Drama,  suggests  that  the  Sacre  Rappresentazioni  were 
developed  by  a  blending  of  the  Umbrian  Divozioni 
with  the  civic  pageants  of  S.  John's  day  at  Florence. 
This  theory  is  plausible  enough  to  deserve  investiga- 
tion; especially  as  many  points  relating  to  the  nature 
of  the  performances  will  be  elucidated  in  the  course  of 
the  inquiry.  We  must,  however,  be  cautious  not  to 
take  for  granted  that  D'  Ancona's  conclusions  have 
been  proved.  The  researches  of  that  eminent  literary 

(Siena,  1581).  A  father  and  his  son  set  out  from  Florence,  at  the  boy's 
request: 

Et  vo  che  noi  andiamo 
a  Fiesolani  poggi, 
Ch'  io  mi  ricordo  c'  hoggi 

una  festa  non  piu  vista 
Mai  piu  el  Vangelista 
vi  fa  e  rappresenta. 

On  the  road  they  wonder,  will  the  booth  be  too  full  for  them  to  find 
places,  will  they  get  hot  by  walking  fast  up  hill,  will  their  clothes  be  de- 
cent? They  meet  the  Festajuolo  at  the  booth-door,  distracted  because 

manca  una  vocc 
Et  e  ito  un  veloce 

a  Firenze  per  lui. 
Voc«  was  the  technical  name  for  the  actor. 


POPULAR   DRAMATIC   SHOWS.  315 

antiquarian,  in  combination  with  those  made  by  Pro- 
fessor Monaci,  are  but  just  beginning  to  throw  light 
on  this  hitherto  neglected  topic. 

From  the  Chroniclers  of  the  fifteenth  century  we 
have  abundant  testimony  that  in  all  parts  of  Italy 
sacred  and  profane  shows  formed  a  prominent  feature 
of  municipal  festivals,  and  were  exhibited  by  the 
burghers  of  the  cities  when  they  wished  to  welcome  a 
distinguished  foreigner,  or  to  celebrate  the  election  of 
their  chief  magistrates.1  Thus  Sigismund,  King  of 
the  Romans,  was  greeted  at  Lucca  in  1432  by  a  solemn 
triumph.  Perugia  gratified  Eugenius  IV.  in  1444 
with  the  story  of  the  Minotaur,  the  tragedy  of  Iphi- 
genia,  the  Nativity  and  the  Ascension.2  The  popular 
respect  for  S.  Bernardino  found  expression  at 
Siena  in  a  pageant,  when  the  Papal  Curia,  in  1450, 
issued  letters  for  his  canonization.3  Frederick  III. 
was  received  in  1462  at  Naples  with  the  spectacle  of 
the  Passion.  Leonora  of  Aragon,  on  her  way  through 
Rome  in  1473  to  Ferrara,  witnessed  a  series  of  panto- 
mimes, profane  and  sacred,  splendidly  provided  by 
Pietro  Riario,  the  Cardinal  of  San  Sisto.4  The 
triumphs  of  the  Popes  on  entering  office  filled  the 
streets  of  Rome  with  dramatic  exhibitions,  indifferently 
borrowed  from  Biblical  and  classic  history.  At  Parma 
in  1414  the  students  celebrated  the  election  of  Andrea 
di  Sicilia  to  a  chair  in  their  university  by  a  procession 

1  See  D*  Ancona,  op.  cit.  pp.  245-267.  Compare  the  section  on  "  Ge- 
selligkeit  und  die  Feste  "  in  Burckhardt's  Cultu^  der  Renaissance  in 
Italien. 

•  Graziani,  Arch.  Star.  xvi.  344. 

8  Allegretti,  Muratori,  xxxiii.  767. 

«  Corio,  quoted  by  me,  Age  of  the  Despots,  p.  390 


316  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

of  the  Magi.1  When  the  head  of  S.  Andrew  entered 
Rome  in  1462,  the  citizens  and  prelates  testified  their 
joy  with  figurative  pomps.2  Viterbo  in  the  same  year 
enjoyed  a  variety  of  splendid  exhibitions,  Cardinal 
vying  with  Cardinal  in  magnificence,  upon  the  festival 
of  Corpus  Domini.3 

The  pageants  above-mentioned  formed  but  prolu- 
sions to  the  yearly  feast  of  S.  John  at  Florence.4 
Florence  had,  as  it  were,  the  monopoly  of  such  shows ; 
and  we  know  from  many  sources  that  Florentine 
artists  were  employed  in  distant  cities  for  the  prepara- 
tion of  spectacles  which  they  had  brought  to  perfection 
in  their  own  town.  An  extract  from  Matteo  Palmieri's 
Chronicle,  referring  to  the  year  1464,  brings  this 
Midsummer  rejoicing  vividly  before  the  reader's  mind.6 
It  is  an  accurate  description  of  the  order  followed  at 
that  period  in  the  exhibition  of  pantomimic  pageants 
by  the  guilds  and  merchants  of  the  town.  "  On  the 
22d  day  of  June  the  Cross  of  S.  Maria  del  Fiore 
moved  first,  with  all  the  clergy  and  children,  and 
behind  them  seven  singing  men.  Then  the  Com- 
panies of  James  the  wool-shearer  and  Nofri  the  shoe- 
maker, with  some  thirty  boys  in  white  and  angels. 

1  See  D*  Ancona,  op.  cit.  p.  245,  and  compare  the  account  of  a  simi- 
lar show  in  Galvano  Flamma's  Chronicle  of  Milan. 

«  Pit  Secundi  Commentarii  (Romas,  1584),  viii.  365. 

a  Niccolb  della  Tuccia,  Cron.  di  Viterbo  (Firenze,  Vieusseux,  1872) 
p.  84. 

*  Look  above  in  chapter  i.  pp.  50-53,  for  passages  from  Goro  Dati's 
Chronicle  and  other  sources,  touching  on  the  summer  festivals  ot 
Florence. 

»  This  passage  from  Palmieri's  MS.  will  be  found,  together  with  full 
information  on  the  subject  of  S.  John's  Day,  in  Cambiagi,  Memorit 
istoriche  riguardanti  lefeste.  etc.  (Firenze,  Stamp.  Gran-ducale,  1766"), 
0.65. 


FLORENCE    ON    S.    JOHN'S    DAY.  3*7 

Thirdly,  the  Tower  (edifizio)  of  S.  Michael,  whereupon 
stood  God  the  Father  in  a  cloud  (nuvola)',  and  on  the 
Piazza.,  before  the  Signoria,  they  gave  the  show 
( rappresentazione )  of  the  Battle  of  the  Angels,  when 
Lucifer  was  cast  out  of  heaven.  Fourthly,  the  Com- 
pany of  Ser  Antonio  and  Piero  di  Mariano,  with  some 
thirty  boys  clothed  in  white  and  angels.  Fifthly,  the 
Tower  of  Adam,  the  which  on  the  Piazza  gave  the 
show  of  how  God  created  Adam  and  Eve,  with  the 
Temptation  by  the  serpent  and  all  thereto  pertaining. 
Sixthly,  a  Moses  upon  horseback,  attended  by  many 
mounted  men  of  the  chiefs  in  Israel  and  others. 
Seventhly,  the  Tower  of  Moses,  which  upon  the  Piazza 
gave  the  show  of  the  Delivery  of  the  Law.  Eighthly, 
many  Prophets  and  Sibyls,  including  Hermes  Trismegis- 
tus  and  others  who  foretold  the  Incarnation  of  our  Lord." 
With  this  list  Palmieri  proceeds  at  great  length, 
reckoning  in  all  twenty-two  Towers.  The  proces- 
sion, it  seems,  stopped  upon  its  passage  to  exhibit 
tableaux ;  and  these  were  so  arranged  that  the  whole 
Scripture  history  was  set  forth  in  dumb  show,  down  to 
the  Last  Day.  The  representation  of  each  tableau  and 
the  moving  of  the  pageant  through  the  streets  and  squares 
of  Florence  lasted  sixteen  hours.  It  will  be  observed 
that,  here  at  least,  a  cyclical  exposition  of  Christian 
doctrine,  corresponding  to  the  comprehensive  Mys- 
teries of  the  North,  was  attempted  in  pantomime. 
The  Towers,  we  may  remark  in  passing,  were  wooden 
cars,  surmounted  with  appropriate  machinery,  on  which 
the  actors  sat  and  grouped  themselves  according  to 
their  subject.  They  differed  in  no  essentials  from  the 
Triumphal  Chariots  of  carnival  time,  as  described  by 


318  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Vasari  in  his  Lives  of  Piero  di  Cosimo  and  Pontormo 
From  an  anonymous  Greek  writer  who  visited  Flor- 
ence in  the  train  of  John  Palaeologus,  we  gather  some 
notion  of  the  effect  produced  upon  a  stranger  by  these 
pageants.1  He  describes  the  concourse  of  the  Floren- 
tines, and  gives  the  measure  of  his  own  astonishment 
by  saying :  "  They  work  prodigies  in  this  feast,  and 
miracles,  or  at  least  the  representation  of  miracles." 

Vasari  in  his  life  of  II  Cecca  contributes  much 
valuable  information  concerning  the  machinery  used 
in  the  shows  of  S.  John's  Day.2  The  Piazza  of  the 
Duomo  was  covered  in  with  a  broad  blue  awning — 
similar,  we  may  suppose,  to  that  veil  of  deeper  and 
lighter  azure  bands  which  forms  the  background  to 
Fra  Lippi's  "  Crowning  of  the  Virgin."  This  was  sown 
with  golden  lilies,  and  was  called  a  Heaven.  Beneath 
it  were  the  clouds,  or  Nuvole,  exhibited  by  various 
civic  guilds.  They  were  constructed  of  substantial 
wooden  frames,  supporting  an  almond-shaped  aureole, 
which  was  thickly  covered  with  wool,  and  surrounded 
with  lights  and  cherub  faces.  Inside  it  sat  the  person 
who  represented  the  saint,  just  as  Christ  and  Madonna 
are  represented  in  the  pictures  of  the  Umbrian  school. 
Lower  down,  projected  branches  made  of  iron,  bearing 
children  dressed  like  angels,  and  secured  by  waist- 
bands in  the  same  way  as  the  fairies  of  our  transfor- 
mation scenes.  The  wood-work  and  the  wires  were 
hidden  from  sight  by  wool  and  cloth,  plentifully 

'  D*  Ancona,  op.  cit.  p.  205.  This  use  of  the  term  Miracle  seems 
to  indicate  that  the  Florentines  applied  to  them  the  generic  term  for 
Northern  Sacred  Plays. 

•  Lemonnier's  edition,  vol.  v. 


THE    INGEGNL  319 

sprinkled  with  tinsel  stars.  The  whole  moved  slowly 
on  the  backs  of  bearers  concealed  beneath  the  frame. 
Vasari  attributes  the  first  invention  of  these  and  similar 
ingegni  to  Filippo  Brunelleschi.  Their  similarity  to 
what  we  know  about  the  pegmata  of  Roman  triumphs, 
renders  this  assertion  probable.  Brunelleschi's  study 
of  ancient  art  may  have  induced  him  to  adapt  a 
classical  device  to  the  requirements  of  Christian  pa- 
geantry. When  designed  on  a  colossal  scale  and  sta- 
tionary, these  Nuvole  were  known  by  the  name  of 
Paradiso.  Another  prominent  feature  in  the  Mid- 
summer Show  was  the  procession  of  giants  and  giant- 
esses mounted  upon  stilts,  and  hooded  with  fantastic 
masks.  Men  marched  in  front,  holding  a  pike  to 
balance  these  unwieldy  creatures;  but  Vasari  states 
that  some  specialists  in  this  craft  were  able  to  walk 
the  streets  on  stilts  six  cubits  high,  without  assistance. 
Then  there  were  spiritelli — lighter  and  winged  beings, 
raised  aloft  to  the  same  height,  and  shining  down  like 
genii  from  their  giddy  altitude  in  sunlight  on  the  crowd. 
Whether  we  are  right  or  not  in  assuming  with 
D'  Ancona  that  the  Sacra  Rappresentazione  was  a 
hybrid  between  the  Umbrian  Divozione  and  these 
pageants,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Florentine  artists, 
and  Ingegnieri,  were  equal  to  furnishing  the  stage  with 
richness.  The  fraternities  spared  no  expense,  but 
secured  the  services  of  the  best  designers.  They  also 
employed  versifiers  of  repute  to  compose  their  libretti. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  these  texts  were  written 
for  boys,  and  were  meant  to  be  acted  by  boys.  Thus 
there  came  into  existence  a  peculiar  type  of  sacred 
drama,  displaying  something  childish  in  its  style,  but 


J20  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

taxing  the  ingenuity  of  scene-painters,  mechanicians, 
architects,  musicians,  and  poets,  to  produce  a  certain 
calculated  theatrical  effect.  When  we  remember  how 
these  kindred  arts  flourished  in  the  last  decades  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  we  are  justified  in  believing  that  the 
Sacre  Rappresentazioni  offered  a  spectacle  no  less 
beautiful  than  curious  and  rare. 

An  examination  of  a  few  of  these  plays  in  detail 
will  help  us  to  understand  one  of  the  most  original 
products  of  the  popular  Italian  literature.  With  this 
object,  I  propose  to  consider  the  three  volumes  of 
reprints,  edited  with  copious  illustrations  by  Professor 
Alessandro  d'  Ancona.1  But  before  proceeding  to 
render  an  account  of  the  forty-three  plays  included  in 
this  collection,  it  will  be  well  to  give  some  notice  of 
the  men  who  wrote  them,  to  describe  their  general 
character,  and  to  explain  the  manner  of  their  presenta- 
tion on  the  stage. 

The  authors  of  Sacre  Rappresentazioni  are  fre- 
quently anonymous ;  but  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  Antonio 
Alamanni,  Bernardo  Pulci  and  his  wife  Monna  Antonia 
contribute  each  a  sacred  drama.  The  best  were 
written  by  Feo  Belcari  and  Castellano  Castellan i.  Of 
the  latter  very  little  is  known,  except  that  in  the  year 
1 5 1 7  he  exercised  the  priestly  functions  at  Florence  and 
was  a  prolific  writer  of  Lauds.  Feo  Belcari,  a  Floren- 
tine citizen,  born  in  1410,  held  civic  offices  of  distinc- 
tion during  the  ascendency  of  Casa  Medici.  He  was 
a  man  of  birth  and  some  learning,  who  devoted  him- 
self to  the  production  of  literature  in  prose  and  verse 
intended  for  popular  edification.  His  Lauds  are 

1  Sacre  Rappresentazioni,  Florence.  Lemonnier,  3  vols.  1872. 


AUTHORS    OF  SACRED    i'LAYS.  321 

among  the  best  which  have  descended  from  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  his  translation  of  the  Lives  of 
the  Fathers  into  Tuscan  is  praised  for  purity  of  style. 
When  he  died,  in  1484,  "  poor,  weak,  and  white-haired," 
Girolamo  Benivieni,  the  disciple  of  Savonarola  and  the 
greatest  sacred  singer  of  that  age,  composed  his  elegy 
in  verses  of  mingled  sweetness  and  fervor1: 

Tace  il  celeste  suon,  gik  spenta  e  morta 

E  1*  armonia  di  quella  dolce  lira, 

Che  '1  mondo  afflitto  or  lascia,  e  '1  ciel  conforta. 
E  come  parimenti  si  sospira 

Qui  la  sua  morte,  cosi  in  ciel  s'allegra 

Chi  alia  nuova  armonia  si  volge  e  gira. 
Felice  lui  che  dalla  infetta  e  negra 

Valle  di  pianti  al  ciel  n*  6  gito,  e  'n  terra 

Lasciata  ha  sol  la  veste  inferma  ed  egra, 
Ed  or  dal  mondo  e  dall'  orribil  guerra 

De'  vizi  sciolto,  il  suo  splendor  vagheggia 

Nel  volto  di  Colui  che  mai  non  erra. 

As  regards  their  form,  the  Sacre  Rappresentaziom 
are  never  divided  into  acts;  but  the  copious  stage-direc- 
tions prove  that  the  scenes  were  shifted,  and  in  one  or 
two  instances  secular  interludes  are  introduced  in  the 

'  It  may  be  not  uninteresting  to  compare  this  tersa  rima  with  o 
passage  written  fifty  years  later  by  Michelangelo  Buonarroti  on  his  fa- 
ther's death,  grander  in  style  but  less  simply  Christian: 

Tu  se*  del  morir  morto  e  fatto  divo,  • 

Ne  tern'  or  piu  cangiar  vita  ne  voglia; 
Che  quasi  senza  invidia  non  lo  scrivo. 

Fortuna  e  '1  tempo  dentro  a  vostra  soglia 
Non  tenta  trapassar,  per  cui  s'  adduce 
Fra  no'  dubbia  letizia  e  cierta  doglia. 

Nube  non  e  che  scuri  vostra  luce, 

L*  ore  distinte  a  voi  non  fanno  forza, 
Caso  o  necessity  non  vi  conduce. 

Yostro  splendor  per  notte  non  s'  ammorza, 
N6  crescie  ma'  per  giorno,  benche  chiaro, 
Sie  quand'  el  sol  fra  no'  il  caldo  rin  forza. 

In  the  Appendix  will  be  found  translations. 


3»2  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

pauses  of  the  action.1  The  drama  follows  the  tale  01 
legend  without  artistic  structure  of  plot;  nor  do  the 
authors  appear  to  have  aimed,  except  in  subordinate 
episodes,  at  much  development  of  character.  What 
they  found  ready  to  their  hand  in  prose,  they  versified. 
The  same  fixed  personages,  and  the  same  traditional 
phrases  recur  with  singular  monotony,  proving  that  a 
conventional  framework  and  style  had  become  stereo- 
typed. The  end  in  view  was  religious  edification. 
Therefore  mere  types  of  virtue  in  saints  and  martyrs, 
types  of  wickedness  in  tyrants  and  persecutors,  sufficed 
alike  for  authors,  actors,  and  audience.  True  dramatic 
genius  emerges  only  in  the  minor  parts,  where  a  cer- 
tain freedom  of  handling  and  effort  after  character- 
drawing  are  discernible.  The  success  of  the  play 
depended  on  the  movement  of  the  story,  and  the 
attractions  of  the  scenery,  costumes  and  music.  It  was 
customary  for  an  angel  to  prologize  and  to  dismiss  the 
audience2;  but  his  place  is  once  at  least  taken  by  a 
young  man  with  a  lute.3  A  more  dramatic  opening 
was  occasionally  attempted  in  a  conversation  between 
two  boys  of  Florence,  the  one  good  and  the  other 
bad;  and  instead  of  the  licenza  the  scene  sometimes 
closed  with 'a  Te  Deum,  or  a  Laud  sung  by  the  actors 

1  Cecchi's  Elevation  of  the  Cross  aims  at  the  dignity  ot  a  five-act 
tragedy;  but  it  was  not  represented  until  1589.  Santa  Uliva  illustrates 
the  interludes;  and  a  very  interesting  example  is  supplied  by  the  Mira- 
colo  di  S.  Maria  Maddalena,  where  two  boys  prologize  in  dialogue, 
comment  at  intervals  upon  the  action,  and  conclude  the  exhibition  with 
a  Laud. 

8  "  L'Angelo  annunzia  la  festa,"  is  the  common  stage-direction  at 
the  beginning;  and  at  the  end  "  L'Angelo  di  licenza." 

3  "Constantino  Imperatore,"  Sacre  Rappr.  ii.  187.  "Un  Giovine 
COD  la  citara  annunzia." 


DRAMATIC   ELEMENTS.  323 

and  probably  taken  up  by  the  spectators.  Castellani 
in  his  Figliuol  Prodigo  made  good  use  of  the  dramatic 
opening,  gradually  working  the  matter  of  his  play  out 
of  a  dialogue  which  begins  with  a  smart  interchange  of 
Florentine  chaff. *  It  would  be  useless  even  to  attempt 
a  translation  of  this  scene.  The  raciness  of  its  obso- 
lete street-slang  would  evaporate,  and  the  fiber  of  the 
piece  is  not  strong  enough  to  bear  rude  handling.  It 
must  suffice  to  indicate  its  rare  dramatic  quality. 
Students  of  our  own  Elizabethan  literature  may  pro- 
fitably compare  this  picture  of  manners  with  similar 
passages  in  Hycke  Scorner  or  Lusty  Juventus.  But 
the  Florentine  interlude  is  more  fairly  represen- 
tative of  actual  life  than  any  part  of  our  Moralities. 
Castellani's  Prodigal  Son,  however,  rises  altogether  to 
a  higher  artistic  level  than  the  ordinary;  and  the  same 
may  be  said  about  the  Miracolo  di  S.  Maria  Madda- 
lena,  where  a  simple  dramatic  motive  is  interwoven 
with  the  action  of  the  whole  piece  and  made  to  supply 
a  proper  ending.2 

As  a  rule,  the  Sacre  Rappresentazioni  partook  of 
the  character  of  a  religious  service.  Their  tone  is  uni- 
formly pious.  Yet  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  the  nature 
of  the  Italians  were  alike  unfavorable  to  piety  of  a 
true  temper.  Here  it  is  unctuous,  caressing,  senti- 
mental— anything  but  vigorous  or  virile.  The  monastic 
virtues  are  highly  extolled;  and  an  unwholesome  view 
of  life  seen  from  the  cloister  by  some  would-be  saint, 
who  "  winks  and  shuts  his  apprehension  up  "  to  common 
facts  of  experience,  is  too  often  presented.  Vice  is 

'  Op.  fit.  vol.  i.  pp.  357-359- 

J  Sacre  Rappr.  i.  391 .    Cp.  the  Abraam  quoted  in  a  note  abore,  p.  313. 


JJ4  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

sincerely  condemned;  yet  the  morality  of  these  exhibi 
tions  cannot  be  applauded.  Instead  of  the  stern  lessons 
of  humanity  conveyed  in  a  drama  like  that  of  Athens 
or  of  England,  the  precepts  of  the  pulpit  and  confes- 
sional are  enforced  with  a  childish  simplicity  that 
savors  more  of  cloistral  pietism  than  of  true  knowledge 
of  the  world.  Mere  belief  in  the  intercession  of  saints 
and  the  efficacy  of  relics  is  made  to  cover  all  crimes ; 
while  the  anti-social  enthusiasms  of  dreamy  boys  and 
girls  are  held  up  for  imitation.  We  feel  that  we  are 
reading  what  a  set  of  feeble  spiritual  directors  wrote 
with  a  touch  of  conscious  but  well-meaning  insincerity 
for  children.  The  glaring  contrast  between  the  pro- 
fessed asceticism  of  the  fraternities  and  the  future  con- 
duct of  their  youthful  members  in  the  world  of  the 
Renaissance  leaves  a  suspicion  of  hypocrisy.1  This 
impression  is  powerfully  excited  by  Lorenzo  de'  Me- 
dici's Rappresentaziom  di  S.  Giovanni  e  Paolo,  which 
was  acted  by  his  children.  The  tone  is  not,  indeed,  so 
unctuous  as  that  of  Castellani.  Yet  when  we  remem- 
ber what  manner  of  man  was  Lorenzo ;  when  we  reflect 
what  parts  were  played  by  his  sons,  Piero  and  Leo  X., 
upon  the  stage  of  Italy;  the  sanctimonious  tone  of  its 
frigid  octave  stanzas  fails  to  impose  on  our  credulity. 

An  adequate  notion  of  the  scenic  apparatus  of  th^ 
Rappresentazioni  may  be  gathered  from  the  stage-di- 
rections to  S.  Uliva  and  from  the  interludes  described 
in  Giovanmaria  Cecchi's  Esaltazione  delta  Croce?  The 
latter  piece  was  acted  in  Florence  on  the  occasion  of 

1  Compare,  for  example,  Vespasiano's  naive  astonishment  at  the 
virginity  of  the  Cardinal  di  Portogallo  with  the  protestations  of  chastity 
in  the  Tre  Pellegrini  (Sacre  Rappr.  iii.  467). 

s  Sacre  Rappr.  iii.  p.  235  and  p.  i. 


SCENIC   APPARATUS.  325 

Ferrando  de'  Medici's  marriage  to  Cristina  of  Lorraine, 
in  1589.  It  belongs,  therefore,  to  the  very  last  of  these 
productions.  Yet,  judging  by  Vasari's  account  of  the 
Ingegni,  we  may  assume  that  the  style  of  presentation 
was  traditional,  and  that  a  Florentine  Company  of  the 
fifteenth  century  might  have  put  a  play  upon  the  stage 
with  at  least  equal  pomp.  The  prose  description  of 
the  apparatus  and  the  interludes  reads  exactly  like 
the  narrative  portion  of  Ben  Jonson's  Masks  at 
Court,  in  which  the  poet  awards  due  praise  to  the 
"  design  and  invention  "  of  Master  Inigo  Jones  and  to 
the  millinery  of  Signer  Forobosco.1  It  was  indeed,  a 
custom  derived  by  England  from  Italy  for  the  poet  to 
set  forth  a  minute  record  of  his  own  designs  together 
with  their  execution  by  the  co-operating  architects, 
scene-painters,  musicians,  dress-makers,  and  morris- 
dancers.  The  architect,  says  Cecchi,  was  one  Taddeo 
di  Leonardo  Landini,  a  member  of  the  Compagnia, 
skilled  in  sculpture  as  well  as  an  excellent  machinist. 
He  arranged  the  field,  or  prato,  of  the  Compagnia  di 
S.  Giovanni  in  the  form  of  a  theater,  covered  with  a 
red  tent,  and  painted  with  pictures  of  the  Cross  con- 
sidered as  an  instrument  of  shameful  death,  as  a  pre 
cious  relic,  and  as  the  reward  of  virtue  in  this  life. 
Emblems,  scrolls  and  heraldic  achievements  completed 
the  adornment  of  the  theater.  When  the  curtain  rose 
for  the  first  time,  Jacob  was  seen  in  a  meadow,  "asleep 
with  his  head  on  certain  stones,  dressed  in  costly  furs 
slung  across  his  shoulder,  with  a  thin  shirt  of  fine  linen 
beneath,  cloth-of-silver  stockings  and  fair  buskins  on 
his  feet,  and  in  his  hand  a  gilt  wand."  While  he 

1  Sucre  Rappr.  p.  121.     Shakespeare  Soc,  T*ubl  vol.  xvil. 


326  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

slept,  heaven  opened,  and  seven  angels  appeared 
seated  upon  clouds,  and  making  "  a  most  pleasant  noise 
with  horns,  greater  and  less  viols,  lutes  and  organ 
....  the  music  of  this  and  all  the  other  interludes 
was  the  composition  of  Luca  Bati,  a  man  in  this  art 
most  excellent."  When  they  had  played  and  sung,  the 
cloud  disclosed,  and  showed  a  second  heaven,  where 
sat  God  the  Father.1  All  the  angels  worshiped  Him, 
and  heaven  increased  in  splendor.  Then  a  ladder 
was  let  down,  and  God,  leaning  upon  it,  turned  to 
Jacob  and  "  sang  majestically  to  the  sound  of  many 
instruments,  in  a  sonorous  bass  voice."  Thereupon 
angels  descended  and  ascended  by  the  ladder,  singing 
a  hymn  in  honor  of  the  Cross;  and  at  last  the  clouds 
closed  round,  heaven  disappeared  and  Jacob  woke 
from  sleep.  Such  was  the  introduction  to  the  drama. 
Between  the  first  and  second  acts  was  shown,  with  no 
less  exuberance  of  scenical  resources,  the  exodus  of 
Israel  from  Egypt;  between  the  second  and  third,  the 
miracle  of  Aaron's  rod  that  blossomed;  between  the 
third  and  fourth,  the  elevation  of  the  Brazen  Serpent; 
between  the  fourth  and  fifth,  the  ecstasy  of  David 
dancing  before  the  ark  "  to  the  sound  of  a  large  lute, 
a  violin,  a  trombone,  but  more  especially  to  his  own 
harp."  After  the  fifth  act  the  play  was  concluded  with 
a  pageant  of  religious  chivalry — the  Knights  of  Malta, 
S.  James,  S.  Maurice,  and  the  Teutonic  Order — who 
had  fought  for  the  Cross,  and  to  whom,  amid  thunder- 
ings  and  lightnings,  as  they  stood  upon  the  stage,  was 
granted  the  vision  of  "  Religion,  habited  in  purest  white, 
full  of  majesty,  with  the  triple  tiara  and  the  crossed 

'  For  the  technical  terms  Nuvola  and  Paradise  see  above,  pp.  318, 319 


INTERLUDES  AND   MASKS.  327 

keys  of  S.  Peter,  holding  in  her  hand  a  large  and 
most  resplendent  cross,  adorned  with  diamonds,  rubies 
and  emeralds."  The  resources  of  a  theater  which 
could  place  so  many  actors  on  the  stage  at  once,  and 
attempt  the  illusion  of  clouds  and  angels,  bringing 
into  play  the  machinery  of  transformation  scenes,  and 
enriching  the  whole  with  a  varied  accompaniment  of 
music,  must  have  been  considerable.  Those  who  have 
spent  an  hour  in  the  Teatro  Farnese  at  Parma,  erected 
of  wood  for  a  similar  occasion,  may  be  able  to  sum- 
mon by  the  aid  of  the  imagination  a  shadow  of  this 
spectacle  before  their  eyes.  That  the  effect  was  not 
wholly  grotesque,  though  the  motives  were  so  hazard- 
ous, can  be  understood  from  Milton's  description  of 
the  descent  of  Mercy  in  his  Christmas  Ode.1 

For  the  play  of  61  Uliva>  though  first  known  to  us 
in  a  Florentine  reprint  of  i568,  we  may  assume  a 
more  popular  origin  than  that  of  Cecchi's  Mystery  of 
the  Cross.  It  abounds  in  rare  Renaissance  combina- 
tions of  pagan  with  Christian  mythology.  The  action 
extended  over  two  days  and  was  interrupted  at  inter- 
vals by  dumb  shows  and  lyrical  interludes  connected 
only  by  a  slight  thread  with  the  story.  At  one  time 
a  chase  was  brought  upon  the  stage.  On  other  occa 
sions  pictures,  described  with  minute  attention  to  de 
tails,  were  presented  to  the  audience  in  Tableaux 

1  It  is  probable  that  the  painting  of  the  period  yields  a  fair  notion  of 
the  scenic  effects  attempted  in  these  shows.  Or,  what  is  perhaps  a  better 
analogue,  we  can  illustrate  the  pages  of  the  libretti  by  remembering  the 
terra-cotta  groups  of  the  Sacro  Monte  at  Varallo.  Designed  by  excellent 
artists  and  painted  in  accordance  with  the  traditions  of  the  Milanese 
school,  it  is  not  impossible  that  these  life-size  representations  of  Christ'" 
Birth  and  Passion  reproduce  the  Sacred  Drama  with  fidelity. 


328  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Vivants.  These  pictures  vividly  recall  the  style  of 
Florentine  masters,  Piero  di  Cosimo  or  Sandro  Botti- 
celli. "  In  the  interval,"  say  the  stage-directions  to  the 
players,  "you  will  cause  three  women,  well-beseen,  to 
issue,  one  of  them  attired  in  white,  one  in  red,  the 
other  in  green,  with  golden  balls  in  their  hands,  and 
with  them  a  young  man  robed  in  white ;  and  let  him, 
after  looking  many  times  first  on  one  and  then  on 
another  of  these  damsels,  at  last  stay  still  and  say  the 
following  verses,  gazing  at  her  who  is  clad  in  green." 
This  is  the  Mask  of  Hope.  In  another  part  the  fable 
of  Narcissus  has  to  be  presented,  and  directions  are 
given  for  the  disappearance  of  Echo,  who  is  to  re- 
peat the  final  syllables  of  the  boy's  lament.  "  After  he 
has  uttered  all  these  complaints,  let  him  thrice  with 
a  loud  voice  cry  slowly  Ahime,  Ahime,  Ahime!  and 
let  the  nymph  reply,  and  having  thus  spoken  let  him 
stretch  himself  upon  the  ground  and  lie  like  one  dead ; 
and  within  a  little  space  let  there  issue  forth  four  or 
more  nymphs  clad  in  white,  without  bows  and  with 
dishevelled  hair,  who,  when  they  have  come  where 
the  youth  lies  dead,  shall  surround  him  in  a  circle 
and  at  last  having  wrapped  him  in  a  white  cloth, 
carry  him  within,  singing  this  song1: 

Fly  forth  in  bliss  to  heaven, 
Thou  happy  soul  and  fair, 
To  find  thy  planet  there,  and  haunt  the  skies; 

Leaving  the  tears  and  sighs 
Of  this  low-lying  earth, 
Where  man  hath  sorry  mirth,  as  thou  dost  know  1 

Bask  in  the  fervent  glow 
Of  that  pure  light  divine, 

'  Sacre  Rappr.  iii.  270. 


SANTA    ULIVA.  329 

Which  on  thy  path  shall  shine,  and  be  thy  guide. 

Nay,  soul,  thou  hast  not  died, 
But  still  more  life  hast  thou, 
Albeit  unbodied  now  thou  art  at  rest. 

O  soul,  divinely  blest, 
Enjoy  the  eternal  mind, 
There  dwelling  unconfined  through  nights  and  days ! 

Heaven's  angels  stand  and  gaze 
Upon  thy  glorious  eyes, 
Up  there  in  Paradise !    In  crowds  they  come  I 

Now  hast  thou  found  thy  home: 
Now  art  thou  blithe  and  blest: 
Dwell  now  for  aye  at  rest,  pure  placid  soul  1 


For  another  interlude  a  May-day  band  of  girls 
attired  in  flower-embroidered  dresses  and  youths  with 
crowns  of  ivy  on  their  heads  are  marshaled  by  Dan 
Cupid.  They  sing  a  song  of  which  the  following  is  a 
free  translation: 


Let  earth  herself  adorn 
With  grasses  and  fresh  flowers, 
And  let  cold  hearts,  these  hours,  in  love's  fire  burn. 

Let  field,  let  forest  turn 
To  bloom  this  morn  of  May, 
That  the  whole  world  to-day  may  leap  and  sing. 

Let  love  within  us  spring, 
Banishing  winter's  smart, 
Waking  within  our  heart  sweet  thoughts  and  fair. 

Let  little  birds  in  air 
Sing  yonder  boughs  above; 
Each  young  man  tell  his  love  to  his  own  maid; 

And  girls  through  mead  and  glade, 
With  honest  eyes  and  meek 
Fixed  on  their  lovers,  seek  true  troth  to  plight. 

From  field  and  mountain  height 
To-day  cold  snows  are  fled; 
No  clouds  sail  overhead;  up  springs  clear  morn. 

Let  violets  be  born, 
Let  leaves  and  grasses  sprout. 


330  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

And  children  wander  out,  garlands  to  twine. 

In  every  dingle  shine 
Flowers  white  and  blue  and  red, 
Roses  and  lilies  shed  perfume  around. 

Maidens  with  May-blooms  crowned 
Through  copse  and  meadow  stray, 
Singing  their  thoughts  to-day,  their  sweet  thoughts  pure. 

Let  none  be  too  demure; 
Innocence  marries  mirth, 
And  from  the  jocund  earth  green  laurels  spring. 

Come,  Love,  and  blessings  bring; 
Chase  sorrow,  scatter  care; 
Make  all  men  happy  there,  soul-full  of  ease. 

Soothe  pain,  soothe  jealousies, 
That  with  their  restless  flame 
Feed  on  man's  heart:  no  shame,  no  grief  be  near. 

Night  and  the  God  of  Sleep  again  amuse  the  audience 
with  an  allegorical  mask;  and  the  seven  deadly  sins, 
figured  as  men,  women  and  beasts,  march  across  the 
stage.  At  no  great  distance  from  a  vision  of  Judg- 
ment, the  Sirens  are  introduced  after  this  fashion: 
"  Now  goes  the  King  to  Rome;  and  you,  meanwhile; 
make  four  women,  naked,  or  else  clothed  in  flesh- 
colored  cloth,  rise  waist-high  from  the  sea,  with  tresses 
to  the  wind,  and  let  them  sing  as  sweetly  as  may  be 
the  ensuing  stanzas  twice;  in  the  which  while  shall 
two  or  three  of  you  come  forth,  and  seem  to  fall  asleep 
on  earth  at  the  hearing  of  the  song,  except  one  only, 
who  shall  be  armed,  and  with  closed  ears  shall  pass 
the  sea  unstayed,  and  let  the  said  women  take  those 
who  sleep  and  cast  them  in  the  waves."  When  we 
reach  Uliva's  wedding,  we  meet  with  the  following 
quaint  rubric:  "  If  you  wish  to  beguile  the  weariness 
caused  by  the  length  of  the  show,  aud  to  make  the 
spectators  take  more  delight  in  this  t%an  in  any  other 


FORTY-THREE    SACRED    PLAYS.  331 

interlude,  then  you  must  give  them  some  taste  of  these 
bridals  by  providing  a  general  banquet;  but  if  you 
mislike  the  expense,  then  entertain  the  players  only." 
It  would  seem  that  6*.  Uliva  was  acted  on  the/r#&  of 
the  confraternity,  where  a  booth  had  been  erected. 

The  forty-three  plays  comprised  in  D'Ancona's 
volumes  may  be  arranged  in  three  classes — those 
which  deal  with  Bible  stories  or  Church  doctrine  based 
on  Scripture;  dramatized  Legends  of  the  saints;  and 
Novelle  transformed  into  religious  fables.  Among  the 
first  sort  may  be  mentioned  plays  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac,  Joseph,  Tobias  and  Raphael,  and  Esther;  the 
Annunciation,  the  Nativity,  S.  John  in  the  Desert, 
Christ  preaching  in  the  Temple,  the  Conversion  of  the 
Magdalen,  the  Prodigal  Son,  the  Passion  and  Resur- 
rection of  our  Lord,  and  the  Last  Judgment.  The 
Nativita  di  Cristo  opens  with  a  pastoral  reminding  us 
of  French  Mysferes  and  English  Miracle-plays.1  The 
shepherds  are  bivouacking  on  the  hills  of  Bethlehem 
when  the  angel  appears  to  them.  For  Tudde,  Harvye, 
Houcken,  and  Trowle  of  our  Chester  play,  we  find 
these  southern  names,  Bobi  di  Farucchio,  Nencio  di 
Pucchio,  Randello,  Nencietto,  and  so  forth.  But  the 
conduct  of  the  piece  is  the  same.  The  Italian  hinds 
discuss  their  cheese  and  wine  and  bread  just  as  the 
clowns  of  Cheshire  talk  about  "ale  of  Hatton,"  "sheep's 
head  sowsed  in  ale,"  and  "  sour  milk."  Such  points  of 
similarity  are  rare,  however;  for  the  Rappresentazioni 
were  the  growth  of  more  refined  conditions,  and  showed 
their  origin  in  sentiment  and  pathos.  The  anonymous 
play  of  Mary  Magdalen  rises  to  a  higher  level  of  dra- 

1  Sacrf  Rappr.  i.  193.    See  Shakespeare  Society's  Publications,  i.  1 19 


33 a  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

matic  art  than  any  sacred  play  in  English.1  Her  story, 
as  told  in  these  scenes,  is  the  versified  novella  of  a 
Vittoria  Accoramboni  or  a  Bella  Imperia  converted 
by  the  preaching  of  S.  Bernardino  or  Savonarola.  It 
might  have  happened  in  Rome  or  Florence  or  Perugia. 
Magdalen,  the  lady  of  noble  blood  but  famous  with  ill- 
fame,  fair  of  person  and  of  heaven-bright  countenance, 
who  dresses  splendidly  and  lives  with  many  lovers, 
spending  her  days  in  the  pleasure  of  rich  banquets  and 
perfumed  baths,  delighting  her  heart  with  the  music  of 
lyres  and  flutes  and  the  voices  of  young  men,  appears 
before  us  with  a  reality  that  proves  how  deep  a  hold 
upon  the  poet's  fancy  her  picturesque  tale  had  taken. 
Martha,  her  good  but  commonplace  sister,  forms  a  foil 
to  the  more  impassioned  and  radiant  figure  of  Mag- 
dalen. She  has  been  cured  by  Christ,  and  has  heard 
Him  preach.  Now  she  entreats  her  sister  but  to  go 
and  listen,  for  never  man  spake  words  like  His.  Mag- 
dalen scoffs:  "Why  should  I  be  damned  because  I  do 
not  follow  your  strange  life  ?  There  is  time  for  me  to 
enjoy  my  youth,  and  then  to  make  my  peace  with  God, 
and  Paradise  will  open  wide  for  me  at  last."  Her  friend 
Marcella  enters  with  another  argument:  "O  Magdalen, 
if  you  did  but  know  how  fair  and  gracious  are  his  eyes ! 
Surely  he  has  come  forth  straight  from  heaven ;  could 
you  but  see  him  once,  your  heart  would  never  be 
divided  from  him."  This  touches  the  right  spring  in 
Magdalen's  mind.  She  will  not  go  to  hear  the  words 
of  Christ,  but  the  face  and  form  that  came  from  Para- 
dise allure  her.  Besides,  in  the  church  where  Christ 
will  preach,  there  will  be  found  new  lovers  and  men  in 

i  Sucre  Kappr.  \.  255. 


MARY  MAGDALEN.  333 

multitudes  to  gaze  at  her.  Her  maidens  array  her  in 
gold  and  crimson,  and  bind  up  her  yellow  hair;  and 
forth  she  rides  in  all  her  bravery  surrounded  by  her 
suitors.  What  follows  may  best  be  told  by  a  trans- 
lation of  the  stage-directions  and  a  passage  of  the  play 
itself. 

And  at  these  last  verses  Jesus  enters  the  temple;  and  having 
gone  up  into  the  pulpit,  he  begins  to  preach  and  to  say  with  a  loud 
voice,  "  Homo  quidam  peregre  proficiscens  vocavit  servos  suos  et  tra- 
didit  illis  bona  sua."  Now  comes  Magdalen  with  her  company,  and 
her  young  men  prepare  for  her  a  seat  before  the  pulpit,  and  she  in 
all  her  pomp  takes  her  place  upon  it,  regarding  her  own  pleasure,  nor 
paying  heed  as  yet  to  Jesus.  Afterward,  Jesus  looks  at  her  and  goes 
on  preaching,  always  keeping  his  most  holy  gaze  bent  upon  her;  and 
she,  after  the  first  stanza  of  the  sermon,  looks  at  him,  and  her  eyes 
meet  those  of  Jesus.  Then  he  goes  on  preaching,  and  says  as 
follows: 

A  certain  lord  who  on  a  journey  went, 
Called  unto  him  each  of  his  serving  men, 
And  of  his  goods  gave  them  arbitrament: 
To  one  he  dealt  five  talents,  to  one  ten, 
To  another  two,  to  try  their  heart's  intent, 
And  see  how  far  they  should  be  careless;  then 
Unto  the  last  he  left  but  one  alone: 
According  to  their  powers,  he  charged  each  one, 

And  when  he  had  departed,  instantly 
That  servant  unto  whom  he  gave  the  five, 
Went  forth,  and  laboring  with  much  industry, 
Increased  them,  and  therewith  so  well  did  thrive 
That  other  five  he  gained  immediately, 
To  render  when  his  master  should  arrive; 
He  who  received  but  twain,  did  even  so, 
And  added  to  his  sum  another  two. 

But  he  on  whom  one  talent  was  bestowed, 
Went  forthwith  and  concealed  it  in  the  soil: 
Careless,  unthankful  for  the  debt  he  owed, 
While  he  hath  peace,  he  seeks  but  strife  and  toil: 
Called  like  his  fellows  in  that  lord's  abode, 
He  answers  not,  hut  doth  himself  despoil; 


334  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

And,  as  a  worthless  steward,  hides  away 
The  money  of  his  master  day  by  day. 

Woe  to  thee,  slothful  servant  and  remiss, 

That  hast  thy  talent  buried  in  the  ground! 

When  reckoning  comes,  thou'lt  yield  account  for  this 

Nay,  think  how  stern  and  rigorous  he'll  be  found  1 

Weep,  then,  in  time  for  what  thou'st  done  amiss, 

Before  the  trumpets  of  the  judgment  sound: 

O  soul,  I  tell  thee  thou  hast  gone  astray, 

Hiding  thy  talent  in  the  earth  away! 

He  who  on  earth  sets  his  affections  still, 
Forgetful  of  the  promised  heavenly  treasure; 
He  who  loves  self  more  than  his  Maker's  will, 
And  in  ill-doing  finds  continual  pleasure; 
He  who  remembers  not  that  sin  must  kill, 
Nor  thinks  how  Hell  will  plague  him  above  measure; 
He  who  against  himself  makes  fast  heaven's  gate ; 
Hideth  in  earth  his  talent  till  too  late. 

He  who  loves  father,  mother,  more  than  God, 
Not  reckoning  His  great  gifts  bestowed  on  man; 
He  who  the  path  of  worldly  gain  hath  trod, 
Publishes  for  himself  damnation's  ban: 
Woe,  woe  to  that  bad  servant  sunk  in  fraud, 
Who  leaves  the  good  and  doth  what  ill  he  can! 
He  who  on  this  world  seeks  his  joy  to  find, 
His  talent  hides  in  earth,  perversely  blind. 

He  who  is  grasping,  proud,  discourteous,  base, 
Who  dreameth  not  that  he  may  come  to  want, 
Who  seeks  for  flattery,  praise,  and  pride  of  place, 
Lording  it  with  high  airs  and  arrogant; 
Who  to  the  world  gives  all,  and  still  doth  chase 
Delight  in  songs  and  pomps  exorbitant; 
Who  in  this  life  is  fain  to  rest  and  sleep—- 
His talent  in  the  earth  lies  hidden  deep. 

Woe  for  that  servant  who  through  negligence 
Hath  hearkened  not  to  the  command  divine! 
Yea,  he  shall  hear  the  dreadful  doom:  Go  hence. 
Go  forth,  accursed,  in  endless  fire  to  pine! 
There  shall  be  then  no  time  for  penitence: 
Bouml  hand  and  foot  with  punishment  condign, 
He  shall  abide  among  lost  souls  beneath, 
j.  Where  is  grea?  \\-eepinjj  and  great  gnashing  of  teeth. 


CfffffST'S   SERMON.  335 

O  soul,  so  full  of  sins,  what  shalt  thou  do  ? 
Of  all  thy  countless  crimes  abominable, 
Look  to  the  end!    Look  to  it!    Hell  for  you 
Lies  open,  with  damned  folk  innumerable! 
Whence  thou  shalt  never  issue,  ever  rue 
In  vain  remorse  and  pangs  intolerable! 
Weep,  soul,  ah  weep  for  thy  most  vile  estate, 
Now  that  repentance  need  not  come  too  late! 

Seek  in  this  life  to  feel  sincere  contrition, 
Before  the  judge  so  just  and  so  severe 
Summons  thee  to  his  throne,  for  inquisition 
Into  each  sin,  each  thought  that  wandered  here: 
There  shalt  thou  find  no  merciful  remission, 
But  justice  shall  be  dealt  with  truth  austere; 
And  he  who  fails  shall  go  to  burn  with  shame 
For  ever,  ever,  in  eternal  flame. 

Quis  ex  vobis  centum  oves  habeas, 
Si  forte  unam  ex  illis  perdiderit, 
Nonne  nonagintas  novem  dimittens 
Et  illam  querit,  donee  ipsam  invenerit  ? 
Et  cum  invenerit,  in  humeros  ponens, 
Gaudens,  in  domum  suam  cito  venerit, 
And  calls  his  kinsfolk  and  his  friends  to  make 
Festival  for  the  new-found  wanderer's  sake  ? 

The  soul,  she  is  that  lost  and  wandering  sheep; 
Eternal  God  is  the  true  shepherd:  He 
Seeks  her,  lest  on  his  lamb  the  wolf  should  leap, 
The  fiend,  who  slays  with  guile  and  treachery. 
He  spends  his  life,  her  safe  to  seek  and  keep, 
And  leaves  those  ninety-nine  in  bliss  to  be; 
And  when  he  finds  her,  makes  great  joy  in  heaven, 
With  all  the  angelic  host,  o'er  one  forgiven. 

There  was  a  father  who  had  children  twain; 
The  younger  son  began  to  speak  and  pray 
That  he  might  take  his  share,  for  he  was  fain, 
Furnished  therewith,  from  home  to  wend  his  way: 
The  father  gently  urged  him  to  remain, 
But  at  the  last  was  bounden  to  obey: 
Far,  far  away  he  roamed,  and  spent  his  all, 
Sad  wretch,  on  carnal  joys  and  prodigal. 


330  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

But  when  he  came  to  want,  repenting  sore, 
Unto  his  father,  all  ashamed,  he  knelt; 
His  father  clothed  him  with  new  robes,  and  bore 
Even  more  tender  love  than  first  he  felt: 
So  doth  high  God,  who  lives  for  evermore, 
Unto  the  souls  that  with  repentance  melt; 
Let  them  but  seek  his  love  with  contrite  will, 
He  is  most  merciful,  and  pardons  still. 

Soul,  thou  hast  wounded  many  hearts,  I  wis, 

Dwelling  in  delicate  and  vain  delight; 

With  many  a  lover  thou  wouldst  toy  and  kiss 

And  art  o'erfull  of  evil  appetite; 

Thy  heart  is  big  with  strifes  and  jealousies: 

Turn  unto  me;  1  wait  to  wash  thee  white; 

That  with  the  rest  thy  talent  thou  mayst  double, 

And  dwell  with  them  in  heaven  secure  from  trouble. 

After  the  blessing  of  Jesus,  Magdalen,  weeping,  and  with  her  head 
covered,  can  have  no  rest  for  the  great  confusion  that  she  felt;  and 
all  the  people  wept,  and  in  great  astonishment  were  waiting  agaze  to 
see  what  should  ensue. 

O  alma  peccatrice>  che  far ai? — Christ's  voice  with 
its  recurrences  of  gravely  sweet  persuasion  melts 
Magdalen's  heart.  She  may  not  speak  one  word, 
until  her  sister  has  led  her  home  and  comforted  her  a 
space.  Then  she  answers: 

Deh,  priega  Iddio  che  in'  allumini  il  core  1 

After  this,  left  alone  with  her  own  soul,  awakened  to 
the  purer  consciousness  that  Christ  has  stirred,  she 
takes  the  box  of  ointment,  and,  despoiled  of  all  her 
goodly  raiment,  with  her  hair  disheveled,  goes  to  the 
house  of  the  Pharisee.  There  at  last,  with  the  breaking 
of  the  alabaster,  she  dissolves  in  tears,  and  her  heart 
finds  peace.  In  these  scenes,  if  anywhere,  we  have  the 
stuff  from  which  the  drama  might  have  been  evolved. 


PARABLES   AND    CHRIST'S   LIFE.  337 

Magdalen  is  a  living  woman,  such  as  Palma  might 
have  painted;  and  Christ  is  a  real  man  gifted  with 
power  to  penetrate  the  soul. 

The  Figliuol  Prodigo  illustrates  the  same  effort  on 
the  poet's  part  to  steep  an  old-world  story  in  the  vivid 
colors  of  to-day.1  In  the  Prodigal  himself  we  find  a 
coarse- hearted  villain,  like  Hogarth's  Idle  Apprentice 
— vain,  silly,  lustful,  gluttonous,  careless  of  the  honor 
and  love  that  belong  to  him  in  his  father's  home. 
The  scenes  with  the  innkeeper,  the  gamblers,  and  the 
ruffians,  among  whom  he  runs  to  ruin,  portray  the 
vulgar  dissipations  of  Florence,  and  justify  the  com- 
mon identification  of  taverns  with  places  of  ill-fame.2 
There  is  a  touch  of  true  pathos  at  the  end  of  the  play 
in  the  grief  of  the  father  who  has  lost  his  son.  The 
conflict  of  feelings  in  the  heart  of  the  elder  brother, 
vexed  at  first  with  the  prodigal's  reception,  but  melting 
into  love  and  pity  at  the  fervor  of  his  penitence,  is 
also  not  without  dramatic  spirit.  At  the  very  end  "  a 
boy  with  the  lyre "  enters  and  "  speaks  the  moral  of 
the  parable."8 

The  movement  of  these  two  plays  is  not  impeded 
by  the  sanctity  of  the  subject.  When,  however,  the 
legend  belongs  more  immediately  to  the  narrative  of 
Christ's  life,  the  form  of  the  Representation  is  more 

>  Sacre  Rappr.  i.  357. 

•  All  the  novelists  might  be  cited  to  illustrate  this  point. 

3  At  the  end  of  the  Rappresentazione  di  un  Pellegrinc  (Sacre  Rappr. 
iii.  430)  a  little  farce  is  printed,  bearing  no  relation  to  the  play.  It  is  a 
dialogue  between  a  good  and  bad  apprentice,  who  discuss  the  question 
of  gambling.  Here  and  in  the  Figliuol  Prodigo  and  the  induction  to 
the  Miracolo  di  S.  Maddalena  we  have  the  elements  of  comedy,  which, 
however,  unfortunately  came  to  nothing.  These  scenes  remind  us  of 
Heywood's  tavern  pictures,  Marston's  "  Eastward  Ho!"  and  other  pre- 
cious pieces  of  English  Elizabethan  farce. 


338  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

severe.  This  is  especially  true  of  Castellani's  Cena  e 
Passicne,  where  the  incidents  of  the  Last  Supper,  the 
Agony  in  the  Garden,  the  trials  before  Pilate  and 
Caiaphas,  the  Flagellation,  and  the  Crucifixion  are 
narrated  with  reverential  brevity.1  In  reading  these 
scenes,  we  must  summon  to  our  memory  Luca  della 
Robbia's  bass-reliefs  or  the  realistic  groups  of  the 
Lombard  Sacri  Monti.  The  colored  terra-cotta  fig- 
ures in  those  chapels  among  the  chestnut  trees  above 
the  Sesia  are  but  Castellani's  poetry  conveyed  in 
tableaux,  while  the  Florentine  actors  undoubtedly 
aimed  at  presenting  by  their  grouping,  dresses  and 
attitudes  a  living  image  of  such  plastic  work.  But 
the  peculiar  pathos  of  the  Italians  found  finer  expres- 
sion in  picture  or  fresco — in  Luini's  "  Flagellation " 
at  S.  Maurizio  or  the  pallid  anguish  of  Tintoretto's 
women  sunk  beneath  the  Cross  in  the  Scuola  di  San 
Rocco — than  in  the  fluent  stanzas  of  the  sacred  play- 
wrights. On  the  walls  of  church  or  oratory  the  sweet- 
ness and  languor  of  emotion  became  as  dignified  in 
beauty  as  the  melodies  of  Pergolese,  and  its  fervor 
touched  at  times  the  sublimity  of  tragic  passion.  Not 
words  but  plastic  forms  were  ever  the  noblest  vehicle 
of  Italian  feeling.  Yet  each  kind  of  art  may  be  profit- 
ably used  to  illustrate  the  other,  and  the  simple  phrases 
of  the  Rappresentazioni  are  often  the  best  comments 
on  finished  works  of  painting.  Here,  for  example,  is 
Raphael's  Lo  Spasimo  in  words a : 

Oime,  figliuol,  6  questo  il  viso 

Ch'  era  tanto  formoso  e  tanto  bello  ? 

Om£,  dove  si  specchia  el  paradise 

i  Sacrt  Rappr.  \.  304.  *  Ibid.  p.  319. 


SCRIPTURE   HISTORIES.  339 

Oggi  6  percosso  in  tanto  gran  flagello  1 
lo  vengo  a  morte,  figliuol  mio  diletto, 
Se  non  ti  tengo  nelle  braccia  stretto. 

Mary  faints,  and  the  Magdalen  supports  her,  weep- 
ing i; 

Ome,  che  per  dolor  Maria  vien  meno: 

Noi  perderem  la  madre  col  figliuolo. 

Pallido  e  il  volto  gia  tanto  sereno, 

Quale  e  tutto  mutato  pel  gran  duolo. 

£1  polso  manca,  e  nel  sacrato  seuo 

El  cuor  suo  resta  respirante  solo. 

Soccorso,  aiuto;  ognun  gli  dia  conforto, 

Sendo  aghiacciato  il  corpo  e  quasi  morto. 

The  hearts  of  these  rude  poets  were  very  tender 
for  Mary,  Mother  of  our  Lord.  There  is  a  touching 
passage  in  the  Disputa  al  Tempio,  when  Joseph  and 
the  Virgin  are  walking  toward  the  temple  with  the 
boy  who  is  to  them  a  sacred  charge2; 

Josef.        I"  guido  e  son  guidato,  e  reggo  quello 
Che  regge  me,  e  muovo  chi  mi  muove: 
Pastor  mi  fo  di  quel  ch'  io  son  agnello; 
O  quanta  grazia  in  questo  servo  piove ! 
Maria,        S"  i'  alzo  gli  occhi  alquanto  per  vederlo, 
Contemplo  nel  mirar  cose  alte  e  nuove. 
Per  la  virtu  di  sua  divina  forma 
L*  amante  ne  1'  amato  si  trasforma. 

Something    artless    and    caressing    in    these    words 

i  Sacre  Rappr.  i.  229. 

»  This  play  ends  with  a  pretty  moralization  of  the  episode  that  forms 
its  motive,  addressed  by  Mary  to  the  people  (ib.  p.  240). 

Figliuo'  diletti,  che  cercate  in  terra 
Trovar  il  figliuol  mio,  pietoso  Iddio, 
Non  vi  fermate  in  questa  rozza  terra, 
Che  Jesu  non  ista  nel  mondo  rio. 
Chi  vel  crede  trovar,  fortement'  erra, 
E  come  stolto  morra  nel  disio. 
Al  tempio,  chi  lo  vuol,  venghi  oggi  drcnto, 
Ch6  '1  viver  vostro  6  come  foglia  al  vento. 


340  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

brings  before  us  Luini's  Joseph  with  his  golden-brown 
robes  and  white  hair,  Mary  in  her  blue  and  crimson 
with  the  beautiful  braided  curls  of  gold.  The  Magda- 
len, again,  moves  through  all  these  solemn  scenes  with 
a  grace  peculiar  to  her  story.  The  poet,  like  the 
painter,  never  forgets  that  her  sins  were  forgiven  quia 
multum  amavit.  She  who  in  Luini's  fresco  at  Lugano 
kneels  with  outstretched  arms  and  long  fair  rippling 
loosened  hair,  beneath  the  Cross,  is  shown  in  the 
Resurrezione  di  Gesu  Cristo  upon  her  knees  before  the 
gardener  whose  one  word  tells  her  that  she  sees  her 
risen  Lord.1  It  is  a  scene  from  Fra  Angelico,  a  touch 
of  tenderness  falling  like  a  faint  soft  light  athwart  the 
mass  of  orthodox  tradition. 

The  sympathy  between  these  shows  and  the  plastic 
arts  may  be  still  further  traced  in  Belcari's  Di  del 
Giudizio?  After  the  usual  prologue  an  angel  thrice 
blows  the  trumpet  blast  that  wakes  the  dead,  crying 
aloud  Surgite!  Minos  assembles  his  fiends,  and 
Christ  bids  the  archangel  separate  the  good  from  the 
bad.3  Michael,  obedient  to  this  order,  seeks  a  hypo- 
crite hidden  among  the  just  and  sets  him  on  the  left 
hand,  while  Trajan  is  taken  from  the  damned  and 
placed  among  the  saved.  Solomon  rises  alone,4  and 
remains  undecided  in  the  middle  space,  till  Michael, 
charging  him  with  carnal  sin,  forces  him  to  take  his  station 

1  Sucre  Rappr.  i.  342.  8  Ibid.  Hi.  439. 

3  For  these  incidents  we  may  think  of  Signorelli's  huge  angels  and 
swarming  devils  at  Orvieto.  What  follows  suggests  the  Lorenzetti  fresco 
at  Pisa,  and  the  Orcagna  of  the  Strozzi  Chapel.  Fra  Angelico  and  Fra 
Bartolommeo  also  supply  pictorial  parallels. 

*  Poetry  forced  Castellani  to  decide  where  Solomon  should  go;  Lo- 
renzetti left  it  vague. 


MONASTIC   LEGENDS.  341 

with  the  goats.  S.  Peter  now  disputes  with  wicked 
friars  who  think  to  save  themselves  by  pointing  to  their 
cowls  and  girdles.  The  poor  appeal  to  S.  Francis, 
but  he  answers  that  poverty  is  no  atonement  for  a 
sinful  life.  Magdalen  refuses  help  to  women  who  have 
lived  impenitent.  Christ  and  Mary  reply  that  the 
hour  of  grace  is  past.  Then  the  representatives  of  the 
seven  deadly  sins  step  forth  and  reason  with  the 
virtuous — the  proud  man  with  the  humble,  the  glutton 
with  the  temperate.  Sons  upbraid  their  fathers  for 
neglect  or  evil  education.  Others  thank  God  for  the 
discipline  that  saved  them  in  their  youth.  At  the  last 
Christ  awards  judgment,  crying  to  the  just:  "  Ye  saw 
me  hungry  and  ye  fed  me,  naked  and  ye  clothed  me ! " 
and  to  the  unjust:  "  I  was  hungry  and  ye  fed  me  not, 
naked  and  ye  clothed  me  not."  Just  and  unjust  an- 
swer, as  in  Scripture,  with  those  words  whereof  the 
double  irony  is  so  dramatic.  The  damned  are  driven 
off  to  Hell,  and  angels  open  for  the  blessed  the  doors 
of  Paradise. 

The  Rappresentazioni  of  the  second  class  offer  fewer 
points  of  interest;  almost  the  sole  lesson  they  inculcate 
being  the  superiority  of  the  monastic  over  the  secular 
life.  S.  Anthony  leaves  the  world  in  which  he  has 
lived  prosperous  and  wealthy,  incarcerates  his  sister  in 
a  convent,  and  becomes  a  hermit.1  Satan  assembles 
the  hosts  of  hell  and  makes  fierce  war  upon  his  resolu- 
tion; but  the  temptation  is  a  poor  affair,  and  Anthony 
gets  through  it  by  the  help  of  an  angel.  The  play 
ends  with  an  assault  of  the  foiled  fiend  of  Avarice 

'  Sacre  Rappr.  1L  33. 


342  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

upon  three  rogues — Tagliagambe,  Scaramuccia,  and 
Carabello — who  cut  each  other's  throats  over  their  ill- 
gotten  booty.  6*.  Guglielmo  Gualtero,  like  S.  Francis, 
sells  all  that  he  possesses,  embraces  poverty,  and  be- 
comes a  saint.1  S.  Margaret  subdues  the  dragon,  and 
is  beheaded  by  a  Roman  prefect  for  refusing  homage 
to  the  pagan  deities.2  55.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  are  Latin 
confessors  of  the  conventional  type.3  The  legends  of 
the  Seven  Sleepers,  S.  Ursula,  and  S.  Onofrio  are 
treated  after  a  like  fashion.  5.  Eufrasia  still  further 
illustrates  the  medieval  ideal  of  monastic  chastity.4  She 
leaves  her  betrothed  husband  and  her  mother  to  enter 
a  convent.  Nothing  befalls  her,  and  her  life  is  good 
for  nothing,  except  that  she  exhales  the  odor  of  con 
ventual  sanctity  and  dies.  51  Teodora  is  a  variation 
on  the  same  theme.6  She  refuses  Quintiliano,  the 
governor  of  Asia,  in  marriage;  and  is  sent  to  a  bad 
house,  whence  Eurialo,  a  Christian,  delivers  her.  Both 
are  immediately  dispatched  to  execution.  It  is  prob- 
able that  the  two  last-mentioned  plays  were  intended 
for  representation  within  the  walls  of  a  nunnery.  51 
Barbara  presents  the  same  motive,  with  a  more 
marked  theological  bias.6  Dioscoro,  the  father  of 
the  saint,  hears  from  his  astrologers  that  she  is 
fated  to  set  herself  against  the  old  gods  of  his  wor- 
ship. To  avert  this  calamity,  he  builds  a  tower  with 
two  windows,  where  he  shuts  her  up  in  the  company 
of  orthodox  pagan  teachers.  Barbara  becomes  learned 
in  her  retirement,  and  refuses,  upon  the  authority  of 
Plato,  to  pay  homage  to  idols.  Faith,  instead  of  Love, 

'  Sacre  Rappr.  Hi.  140.  »  Ibid.  ii.  124.  »  Ibid.  ii.  235. 

•»  Ibid.  ii.  269.  »  Ibid.  ii.  323.  «  Ibid.  ii.  71. 


TREATMENT    OF  ROMANCE.  343 

finds  this  new  Danae,  in  the  person,  not  of  Zeus,  but 
of  a  priest  dispatched  by  Origen  from  Alexandria  to 
convert  her  to  Christianity.  The  princess  learns  her 
catechism,  is  baptized,  and  adds  a  third  window  to  her 
tower,  in  recognition  of  the  Trinity.  It  only  remains 
for  her  father  to  torture  her  cruelly  to  death. 

The  outline  of  these  stories  is  often  singularly 
beautiful,  and  capable  of  poetic  treatment.  Remem- 
bering what  Massinger  and  Decker  made  of  the 
Virgin  Martyr,  we  turn  with  curiosity  to  S.  Teodora 
or  S.  Ursula.  Yet  we  are  doomed  to  disappointment. 
The  ingenuous  charm,  again,  which  painters  threw  over 
the  puerilities  of  the  monastic  fancy,  is  absent  from 
these  plays.  Sodoma's  legend  of  S.  Benedict  in  fresco 
on  the  walls  of  Monte  Oliveto,  Carpaccio's  romance  of 
S.  Ursula  painted  for  her  Scuola  at  Venice,  are  touched 
with  the  grace  of  a  child's  fairy-story.  The  Rappre- 
sentazioni  eliminate  all  elements  of  mystery  and  magic 
from  the  fables,  and  reduce  them  to  bare  prose.  The 
core  of  the  myth  or  tale  is  rarely  reached ;  the  depths 
of  character  are  never  penetrated;  and  still  the 
wizardry  of  wonderland  is  gone.  In  the  hands  of 
these  Italian  playwrights  the  most  pregnant  story  of 
the  Orient  or  North  assumed  the  thin  slight  character 
of  ordinary  life.  Its  richness  disappeared.  Its  beauty 
evanesced.  Nothing  remained  but  the  dry  bones  of  a 
novella.  Indeed,  the  prose  legends  of  the  fourteenth 
century  are  far  more  fascinating  than  these  dramatized 
tales  of  the  Renaissance,  which  might  be  used  to  prove, 
if  further  proof  were  needed,  that  the  Italian  imagina- 
tion is  not  in  the  highest  sense  romantic  or  fantastic,  not 
far-reaching  by  symbol  or  by  vision  into  the  depths  of 


344  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

nature  human  and  impersonal.  The  sense  of  infinity 
which  gives  value  to  Northern  works  of  fancy,  is  un- 
known in  Italy.  Sir  Thomas  Mallory  wrote  of 
Arthur's  passage  into  dreamland  l :  "  And  when  they 
were  at  the  water's  side,  even  fast  by  the  banke  hoved 
a  little  barge  with  many  faire  ladies  in  it,  and  among 
them  all  was  a  queene,  and  all  they  had  blacke  hoods, 
and  they  wept  and  shriked  when  they  saw  King 
Arthur."  The  author  of  the  Tavola  Ritonda  makes  the 
event  quite  otherwise  precise 2 : 

E  stando  per  un  poco,  ed  ecco  per  lo  mare  venire  una  navicella, 
tutta  coperta  di  bianco  ...  e  la  nave  s'  accostb  allo  re,  e  alquante 
braccia  uscirono  della  nave  che  presono  lo  re  Artu,  e  visibilemente  il 
misono  nella  nave,  e  portarollo  via  per  mare  ...  si  crede  che  la 
fata  Morgana  venisse  per  arte  in  quella  navicella,  e  portbllo  via  in 
una  isoletta  di  mare;  e  quivi  mori  di  sue  ferite,  e  la  fata  il  sopelli 
in  quella  isoletta. 

This  anxiety  after  verification  and  distinctness  is 
almost  invariable  in  Italian  literature.  The  very 
devil  becomes  a  definite  and  oftentimes  prosaic  per- 
sonage. External  Nature  is  credited  with  no  inner 
spirit,  reaching  forth  from  wood  or  wave  or  cloud  to 
touch  the  soul  of  man  in  reverie  or  trance,  or  breaking 
on  his  charmed  senses  in  the  form  of  gnome  or  water- 
sprite  or  fairy.  Men  and  women  move  in  clear  sun- 
light, disenchanted  of  the  gloom  or  glory,  as  of  star- 
irradiate  vapor,  which  a  Northern  mytho-poet  wraps 
around  them,  making  their  humanity  thereby  more 
poignant. 

Those  who  care  to  connect  the  genius  of  a  people 
with  the  country  of  their  birth,  may  find  the  source  of 

La  Mori  d*  Arthur  (Wright's  edition),  vol.  iii.  p.  331. 
*  Polidori's  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  542. 


ITALIAN  IMAGINATION.  345 

these  mental  qualities  in  the  nobly  beautiful,  serene 
and  gracious,  but  never  mystical  Italian  land.  The 
Latin  Camcense  have  neither  in  ancient  nor  in  modern 
years  evoked  the  forms  of  mythic  fable  from  that  land- 
scape. Far  less  is  there  the  touch  of  Celtic  or 
Teutonic  inspiration — the  light  that  never  was  on  sea 
or  land.  The  nightingales  of  Sorrento  or  Nettuno  in 
no  poet's  vision  have 

Charmed  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. 

Down  the  hillsides  between  Lucca  and  Pistoja,  where 
the  cypresses  stand  in  rows  and  olives  cast  their 
shadows  on  the  gray  tilled  soil,  no  lover  has  dreamed 
he  met  Queen  Guinevere  in  spring  riding  through 
flowers  with  Lancelot.  Instead  of  Morgan  le  Fay, 
turning  men  to  lichened  and  mist-moistened  stones 
upon  the  heath,  the  Italian  witch  was  ever  Locusta, 
the  poison-brewer,  or  Alcina,  the  temptress. 

This  peculiarity  of  the  Italian  genius  made  their 
architects  incapable  of  understanding  Gothic.  This 
deprived  Italian  art  of  that  sublimity  which  needs  a 
grain  of  the  grotesque  for  its  perfection,  a  touch  of  the 
uncouth  for  its  accomplishment.  The  instinct  of  poets 
and  artists  alike  induced  them  to  bring  mystery  within 
the  sphere  of  definition,  to  limit  the  marvelous  by 
reducing  it  to  actual  conditions,  and  to  impoverish  the 
terrible  by  measuring  its  boundaries.  But  since  every 
defect  has  its  corresponding  quality,  this  same  instinct 
secured  for  the  modern  age  a  world  of  immaculate 
loveliness  in  art  and  undimmed  joyousness  in  poetry. 
If  the  wonderland  of  fancy  is  eliminated,  the  monstrous 


346  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

and  unshaped  have  disappeared.  With  the  grotesque 
vanishes  disproportion.  Humanity,  conscious  of  its 
own  emotion,  displaces  the  shadowy  people  of  the 
legends.  We  move  in  a  well-ordered  world  of  cheer- 
fulness and  beauty,  made  for  man,  where  symmetry  of 
parts  is  music.  Ariosto's  jocund  irony  is  no  slight 
compensation  for  the  imagery  of  a  Northern  mythus. 

Returning  to  the  Rappresentazioni,  we  are  forced  to 
admit  that  the  defect  of  the  Italian  fancy  is  more  appar- 
ent than  its  quality,  in  a  species  of  dramatic  art  which, 
being  childish,  needed  some  magic  spell  to  reconcile  an 
adult  taste  to  its  puerility.1  They  were  written  at  the 
most  prosaic  moment  of  the  national  development,  by 
men  who  could  not  afford  to  substitute  the  true  Italian 
poetry  of  irony  and  idyllic  sensuousness  for  the  ancient 
religious  spirit.  The  bondage  of  the  middle  ages  was 
upon  them.  They  were  forced  to  take  the  extrava- 
gance of  the  monastic  imagination  for  fact.  But  they 
did  not  really  believe;  and  so  the  fact  was  apprehended 
frigidly,  prosaically.  Instead  of  poetry  we  get  rhetoric; 
instead  of  marvels,  gross  incredibilities  are  forced  upon 
us  in  the  lives  of  men  and  women  fashioned  like  the 

•  The  greater  maturity  of  the  plastic  than  of  the  poetic  arts  in  the 
fifteenth  century  is  apparent  when  we  contrast  the  Rappresentazionivi\\\\ 
Masaccio's,  Ghirlandajo's,  Mantegna's,  or  Carpaccio's  paintings.  Art,  as 
I  have  frequently  had  to  observe,  emancipated  the  human  faculties,  and 
humanized  the  figments  of  the  middle  age  by  investing  them  with  cor- 
poreal shape  and  forms  of  aesthetic  beauty.  The  deliverance  of  the 
Italian  genius  was  thus  effected  in  painting  earlier  than  in  poetry,  and  in 
those  very  spheres  of  religious  art  where  the  poets  were  helpless  to  attain 
true  freedom.  Italian  poetry  first  became  free  when  it  turned  round  and 
regarded  the  myths  with  an  amused  smile.  I  do  not  say  that  this  was 
absolutely  necessary,  that  an  heroic  Christian  poetry  might  not  have 
been  produced  in  the  fifteenth  century  by  another  race.  Bu  for  the 
Italians  it  was  necessary. 


TEOFILO.  347 

folk  who  crowd  the  streets  we  know.  Another  step 
in  the  realistic  direction  would  have  transformed  all 
these  religious  myths  into  novelle;  and  then  a  new 
beauty,  the  beauty  of  the  Decameron  and  Novellino, 
would  have  been  shed  upon  them.  But  it  was 
precisely  this  step  that  Castellani  and  Belcari  dared 
not  take,  since  their  purpose  remained  religious  edifi- 
cation. Nay,  their  instinct  led  them  in  the  opposite 
direction.  Unable  to  escape  the  influence  of  the 
novella,  which  was  the  truest  literary  form  peculiar  to 
Italy  in  that  age,  they  converted  it  into  a  sacred  legend 
and  treated  it  with  the  same  rhetorical  and  insincere 
pietism  as  the  stories  of  the  Saints.  From  S.  Barbara 
to  the  third-class  Rappresentazioni  the  transition  is 
easy. 

The  interest  of  this  group  of  stories,  as  illustrating 
the  psychological  conditions  of  the  Italian  imagination, 
is  great.  Stripped  of  medieval  mystery,  reduced 
to  the  proportions  of  a  novella,  but  not  yet  invested 
with  its  worldly  charm,  denuded  of  the  pregnant 
symbolism  or  tragic  intensity  of  their  originals,  these 
plays  reveal  the  poverty  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
incapacity  of  the  Florentine  genius  at  that  moment  to 
create  poetry  outside  the  sphere  of  figurative  art,  and 
in  a  region  where  irony  and  sensuality  and  natural 
passion  were  alike  excluded.  They  might  be  com- 
pared to  dead  bones  awaiting  the  spirit-breath  of 
mirth  and  sarcasm  to  rouse  them  into  life.  Teofilo  is 
the  Italian  Faustus.1  A  devil  accuses  him  to  the 
Bishop  he  is  serving.  Outcast  and  dishonored,  he 
seeks  Manovello,  a  Jewish  sorcerer,  who  takes  him 
»  Sacre  Rappr.  ii.  447. 


348  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

to  a  cross -way  and  raises  the  fiend,  Beelzebub.  Teofilo 
abjures  Christ,  adores  the  devil,  and  signs  a  promise 
to  be  Satan's  bondsman.  In  return,  Beelzebub  dis- 
patches a  goblin,  Farfalletto,  to  the  Bishop,  who 
believes  that  an  angel  has  come  to  bid  him  restore 
Teofilo  to  honor.  Consequently  Teofilo  regains  his 
post.  But  in  the  midst  of  his  prosperity  the  renegade 
is  wretched.  Stung  by  conscience,  he  throws  himself 
upon  the  mercy  of  our  Lady.  She  pleads  for  him  with 
Christ,  summons  the  devil,  and  wrests  from  his  grasp 
the  parchment  given  by  Teofilo.  Poetic  justice  is 
satisfied  by  Manovello's  descent  to  hell.  Such  is  the 
prosaic  form  which  the  Faust  legend  assumed  in  Italy. 
Instead  of  the  lust  for  power  and  knowledge  which 
consumed  the  doctor  of  Wittenberg,  making  him  ex- 
claim : 

Had  I  as  many  souls  as  there  be  stars, 
I'd  give  them  all  for  Mephistophilis  1 

we  have  this  commonplace  story  of  a  bishop's 
almoner,  driven  by  a  vulgar  trial  of  his  patience  to 
abjure  the  faith.  The  intercession  of  Mary  introduces 
a  farcial  element  into  the  piece:  the  audience  is 
amused  by  seeing  the  devil's  contract  snatched  from 
him  after  a  jocular  altercation  with  the  Queen  of 
Heaven.  Our  Mephistophilis  is  either  fantastical!)' 
grotesque,  as  in  the  old  prose-legend,  or  tragically 
saturnine,  as  in  Marlowe's  tragedy.  The  fiend  of  this 
Florentine  play  is  a  sort  of  supernatural  usurer,  who 
lends  at  a  short  date  upon  exorbitant  interest,  and  is 
nonsuited  for  fraud  in  the  supreme  court  of  appeal. 
To  charge  the  Italian  imagination  in  general  with  this 
dwarfing  and  denning  of  a  legend  that  had  in  it  such 


THE   Jf£   SUPERB 'O   AND    BARLAAM.  349 

elements  of  grandeur,  might  be  scarcely  fair.  The 
fault  lies  more  perhaps  with  Florence  of  the  fifteenth 
century;  yet  Florence  was  the  brain  of  Italy,  and  if 
the  people  there  could  find  no  more  of  salt  or  savor 
in  a  myth  like  that  of  Theophilus,  this  fact  gives  food 
for  deep  reflection  to  the  student  of  their  culture. 

In  the  Kb  Superbo  we  have  one  of  those  stories 
which  traveled  from  the  far  East  in  the  middle  ages 
over  the  whole  of  Europe,  acquiring  a  somewhat  dif 
ferent  form  in  every  country.1  The  proud  king  in  the 
midst  of  his  prosperity  falls  sick.  He  takes  a  short 
day's  journey  to  a  watering-place,  and  bathes.  By 
night  an  angel  assumes  his  shape,  dons  his  royal  robes, 
summons  his  folk,  and  fares  homeward  to  his  palace. 
The  king,  meanwhile,  is  treated  by  the  innkeeper  as 
an  impudent  rascal.  He  begs  some  rags  to  cover  his 
nakedness,  and  arrives  in  due  time  at  the  city  he  had 
left  the  day  before.  There  his  servants  think  him 
mad;  but  he  obtains  an  audience  with  the  angel,  who 
reads  him  a  sermon  on  humility,  and  then  restores  him 
to  his  throne.  In  this  tale  there  lay  nothing  beyond 
the  scope  of  the  Italian  imagination.  Consequently  the 
treatment  is  adequate,  and  the  situations  copied  from 
real  life  are  really  amusing.  The  play  of  Barlaam  c 
Josafat  by  Bernardo  Pulci  is  more  ambitious.2  Josa- 
fat's  father  hears  from  his  astrologers  that  the  child 
will  turn  Christian.  Accordingly  he  builds  a  tower, 
and  places  his  son  there,  surrounded  with  all  things 
pleasant  to  the  senses  and  cheering  to  the  heart  of  man. 
His  servants  receive  strict  orders  that  the  boy  should 
never  leave  his  prison,  lest  haply,  meeting  with  old 

'  Sacre  Rappr,  ii;.  177.  «  Ibid.  ii.  163. 


350  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

age  or  poverty  or  sickness,  he  should  think  of  Christ 
On  one  occasion  they  neglect  this  rule.  Josafat  rides 
forth  and  sees  a  leper  and  a  blind  man,  and  learns 
that  age  and  death  and  pain  are  in  store  for  all.  This 
stiis  reflection,  and  prepares  him  to  receive  the 
message  of  one  Barlaam,  who  comes  disguised  as  a 
merchant  tc  the  tower.  Barlaam  offers  him  a  jewel 
which  restores  sight  to  the  blind,  hearing  to  the  deaf, 
speech  to  the  dumb,  and  which  turns  a  fool  to  wisdom. 
The  jewel  is  the  faith  of  Christ.  Josafat  is  instantly 
converted  and  baptized;  nor  can  the  persuasions  of 
wise  men  or  the  allurements  of  women  overcome  his 
fixed  resolve.  So  firmly  rooted  is  his  new  faith,  so 
wonderful  his  eloquence,  that  he  converts  his  father  and 
the  Court,  and  receives  for  his  great  wisdom  the  crown 
of  his  ancestors.  Yet  an  earthly  throne  savors  too 
much  in  his  eyes  of  worldly  pride.  Therefore  he  re- 
nounces it,  and  lives  thenceforth  a  holy  hermit.  This 
legend,  it  will  be  perceived,  is  a  dim  echo  of  the  won- 
derful history  of  Siddartha,  the  founder  of  Buddhism. 
Beautiful  as  are  the  outlines,  too  beautiful  to  be  spoiled 
by  any  telling,  Pulci  has  done  his  best  to  draw  it  from 
the  dream-world  of  romance  into  the  sphere  of  prose. 
At  the  same  time,  while  depriving  it  of  romance,  he 
has  not  succeeded  in  dramatizing  it.  We  do  not  feel 
the  psychological  necessity  for  the  changes  in  any  of 
the  characters;  the  charm  of  each  strange  revolution 
is  destroyed  by  the  clumsy  preparation  of  the  motives. 
We  are  forced  to  feel  that  the  playwright  was  working 
on  the  lines  of  a  legend  he  did  not  understand  and 
could  not  vitalize.  The  wonder  is  that  he  thought  of 
choosing  it  and  found  it  ready  to  his  hand. 


THE    TALE    OF    ULIVA.  351 

Few  of  the  Rappresentazioni  are  so  interesting  as 
S.  Uliva}-  Uliva  is  no  saint  of  the  Catholic  calendar 
but  a  daughter  of  world-old  romance.  Her  legend 
may  be  read  in  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  in  Philip  de 
Beaumanoir's  Roman  de  la  Mannelline,  in  Ser  Gio- 
vanni's Pecorone>  in  Chaucer's  Man  of  Laws  Tale,  in 
Grimm's  Handless  Maiden,  and  in  Russian  and  Servian 
variations  on  the  same  theme.  It  is  in  truth  the  relic 
of  some  very  ancient  myth,  used  by  the  poets  of  all 
ages  for  the  sake  of  its  lesson  of  patience  in  affliction, 
its  pathos  of  persecuted  innocence.  The  form  the 
tale  assumed  in  Italy  is  this.  Uliva,  daughter  of  the 
Roman  Emperor,  Giuliano,  is  begged  in  marriage  by 
her  own  father,  who  says  she  has  more  beautiful 
hands  than  any  other  princess.  She  cuts  her  hands  off, 
and  Giuliano  sends  her  to  Britain  to  be  killed.  But 
her  murderers  take  pity  on  her,  and  leave  her  in  a 
wood  alone.  There  the  King  of  Britain  finds  her 
and  places  her  under  the  protection  of  his  queen. 
After  many  misfortunes  the  Virgin  Mary  restores  her 
hands,  and  she  is  married  to  the  King  of  Castile. 
She  bears  him  a  son ;  but  by  this  time  she  has  roused 
the  jealousy  and  hatred  of  the  queen-mother,  who 
takes  the  opportunity  of  the  king's  absence  to  poison 
his  mind  against  her  by  letters,  and  shortly  after  drives 
her  forth  with  her  child.  Uliva  reaches  Rome,  and 
lives  there  twelve  years  unknown,  till  her  husband,  who 
has  discovered  and  punished  his  mother's  treason,  and 
has  sought  his  wronged  wife  sorrowing,  at  last  rejoins 
ner  and  recognizes  in  her  son  his  heir.  The  play  ends 

1  Sacre  Rappr.  iii.  235.     Also  edited  separately  with  an  introduc- 
tion by  D'  Ancona 


352  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

with  a  reconciliation  scene  between  the  Emperor,  the 
King,  and  Uliva,  the  Pope  pronouncing  benedictions 
on  the  whole  party.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  brief 
abstract  of  the  legend  that  the  Rappresentazione  is  a 
^chivalrous  novella  dramatized.  Several  old  pathetic 
stories  have  been  woven  into  one,  and  the  heroine  has 
been  dignified  with  the  title  of  saint  because  of  the 
pity  she  inspires.  Uliva  belongs  to  the  sisterhood  of 
Boccaccio's  Griselda,  Ariosto's  Ginevra,  and  the  Queen 
in  our  old  ballad  of  Sir  Aldingar.  The  medieval 
imagination,  after  creating  types  of  stateliness  like 
Guinivere,  of  malice  like  Morgana,  of  love  like  Iseult, 
turned  aside  and  dwelt  upon  the  tender  delicacy  of  a 
woman,  whose  whole  strength  is  her  beauty,  gentle- 
ness, and  patience;  who  suffers  all  things  in  the  spirit  of 
charity ;  whom  the  angels  love  and  whom  our  Lady 
cherishes ;  who  wins  all  hearts  of  men  by  her  goodli- 
ness;  and  who,  like  Una,  passes  unscathed  through 
peril  and  persecution  until  at  last  her  joy  is  perfected 
by  the  fruition  of  her  lawful  love.  It  was  precisely 
this  element  of  romance  that  touched  the  Italian  fancy ; 
and  the  playwright  of  S.  Uliva  has  shown  consider- 
able skill  in  his  treatment  of  it.  Piteous  details  are 
accumulated  with  remorseless  pertinacity  upon  the  head 
of  the  unfortunate  Uliva,  in  order  to  increase  the 
pathos  of  her  situation.  There  is  no  mitigation  of  her 
hardships  except  in  her  own  innocence,  and  in  the 
loving  compassion  wrung  by  her  beauty  from  her  rude 
tormentors.  This  want  of  relief,  together  with  the 
brusque  passage  from  one  incident  to  another,  betrays 
a  lack  of  dramatic  art.  But  the  poet,  whoever  he  was., 
succeeded  in  sustaining  the  ideal  of  purity  and  beauty 


STELLA    AND    ROSANA.  353 

he  conceived.  He  shows  how  all  Uliva's  sufferings  as 
well  as  her  good  fortune  were  due  to  the  passions  her 
beauty  inspired,  and  how  it  was  her  purity  that  held 
her  harmless  to  the  end. 

Stella  is  the  same  story  slightly  altered,  with  a 
somewhat  different  cast  of  characters  and  an  evil- 
hearted  step-mother  in  the  place  of  the  malignant 
queen.1  If  we  compare  both  fables  with  Grimm's 
version  of  the  "  Handless  Maiden,"  the  superiority 
of  the  Northern  conception  cannot  fail  to  strike  us. 
The  Italian  novella,  though  written  for  the  people, 
exhibits  the  external  pomp  and  grandeur  of  royalty. 
All  its  motives  are  drawn  from  the  clash  of  human 
passions.  Yet  these  are  hidden  beneath  a  superincum- 
bent mass  of  trivialities.  The  German  tale  has  a  back- 
ground of  spiritual  mystery — good  and  evil  powers 
striving  for  the  possession  of  a  blameless  soul.  When 
the  husband,  who  has  been  deceived  by  feminine  mal- 
ice, takes  his  long  journey  without  food  as  a  penitent 
to  find  his  injured  wife,  how  far  deeper  is  the  pathos 
and  the  poetry  of  the  situation  than  the  Italian  ap- 
paratus of  couriers  with  letter-bags,  chancellors,  tour- 
naments, and  royal  progresses  undertaken  with  a  vast 
parade,  can  compass !  The  Northern  fancy,  stimulated 
by  the  simple  beauty  of  the  situation,  confines  itself  to 
the  passionate  experience  of  the  heart  and  soul.  The 
Florentine  playwright  adheres  to  the  material  facts  of 
life,  and  takes  a  childish  pleasure  in  passing  the  splen- 
dors of  kings  and  princes  in  review.  By  this  method 
he  vulgarizes  the  legend  he  handles.  Beneath  his 

t  Sacrf  Rappr.  iii.  319. 


354  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

touch  it  ceases  to  be  holy  ground.  The  enchantment 
of  the  myth  has  evanesced. 

Rosana  is  simply  the  story  of  Floire  et  Blanchefleur^ 
which  Boccaccio  had  already  worked  into  his  Filocopo^ 
Austero,  King  of  Rome,  goes  with  his  wife  on  pilgrim- 
age to  Holy  Land.  He  falls  into  the  hands  of  the 
King  of  Cesaria,  and  is  slain  with  all  his  folk,  except 
the  queen.  She  is  taken  captive  to  Cesaria,  where  she 
gives  birth  to  Rosana  on  the  same  day  that  Ulimeno 
is  born  to  her  master.  When  Ulimeno  grows  up,  he 
loves  the  daughter  of  his  father's  slave.  His  parents 
seek  to  cure  this  passion  by  sending  him  to  France, 
and  at  the  same  time  sell  Rosana  to  some  merchants, 
who  convey  her  to  the  Sultan's  harem.  Ulimeno  re- 
turns to  Cesaria  in  deep  distress,  and  vows  that  he  will 
never  rest  till  he  has  regained  his  love.  After  a 
proper  number  of  adventures,  he  finds  Rosana  in  the 
seraglio,  where  notwithstanding  the  Sultan's  admira- 
tion of  her  beauty,  she  has  preserved  her  virginity. 
They  are  married,  and  Ulimeno  is  converted,  with  his 
realm,  to  Christianity.  The  prettiest  parts  of  this  play 
are  the  scenes  in  the  seraglio,  where  Rosana  refuses 
comfort  from  the  Sultan's  women,  and  the  contrivances 
devised  by  Ulimeno  to  get  speech  with  her.  Except 
that  Rosana  and  her  parents  are  Christian  and  that  the 
saints  protect  her,  there  is  nothing  to  justify  the  title 
of  Sacra  Rappresentazione.  It  is  a  love-romance,  like 
Shakspere's  Pericles. 

Another  novella  of  less  poetic  interest  is  drama- 
tized in  Agnolo  Ebreo?  Agnolo,  the  Jew,  has  a  Chris- 
tian wife,  who  persuades  him  instead  of  putting  out 
his  money  at  usury  to  lend  it  to  Christ  by  giving 

»  Sacre  Kaffir,  iii.  362.  «  Ibid,  Hi.  485, 


THREE    PILGRIMAGE    PLAYS.  355 

it  away  in  alms.  Having  thus  cast  his  bread  upon  the 
waters,  he  recovers  it  again  after  not  many  days  by 
picking  up  money  in  the  streets  and  finding  a  jewel  in 
a  fish's  belly.  He  is  baptized,  because  he  sees  clearly 
that  the  God  of  the  Christians  can  make  him  rich. 
Only  its  tedious  solemnity  prevents  this  play  from 
being  a  farce. 

Three  Rappresentazioni  are  written  upon  incidents 
of  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  S.  James  ot  Compostella 
— II  Santo  Barone,  as  he  is  always  called.  The  first  of 
these  is  entitled  Rappresentazione  di  un  Pellegrino. 1 
It  tells  the  tale  of  a  certain  Guglielmo  who  vowed  the 
journey  to  Compostella  on  his  sick  bed.  Upon  the 
road  he  meets  with  a  fiend  in  the  disguise  of  S.  James, 
who  persuades  him  to  commit  suicide.  No  sooner  is  he 
dead,  than  the  devil  grasps  his  soul,  as  may  be  seen  in 
Lorenzetti's  fresco  of  the  Campo  Santo,  and  makes 
away  with  it  toward  hell.  S.  James  stops  him,  and  a 
voluble  altercation  takes  place  between  them,  at  the 
end  of  which  the  soul,  who  keeps  crying  misericordia 
at  intervals,  is  rescued  and  restored  to  its  body. 
Then  Guglielmo  completes  his  vow,  and  returns 
joyfully  to  his  wife.  I  due  Pellegrini  is  more  complex.2 
Arrigo  Coletta  leaves  his  wife  and  son  at  Rome 
Constantino  Constante  leaves  his  wife  and  three  sons 
at  Genoa;  and  both  set  forth  to  Compostella.  On 
the  way  they  meet  and  make  friends ;  but  the  Genoese 
dies  before  they  have  got  far  upon  their  journey.  His 
Roman  friend  carries  the  dead  body  to  Compostella, 
where  S.  James  restores  it  to  life,  and  both  return  in 
safety  to  their  homes.  After  sojourning  some  time  in 

>  Sacre  Rappr.  iii.  416.  *  Ibid.  iii.  439. 


356  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Rome,  Arrigo  falls  sick  of  leprosy,  and  has  to  go  forth 
and  wander  up  and  down  the  earth.  Chance  brings 
him  to  the  house  of  the  Genoese  who  had  received 
such  benefits  from  him  upon  their  pilgrimage.  They 
consult  doctors  and  wise  men  together,  who  assure 
them  that  no  cure  can  be  wrought  unless  the  leper 
bathe  from  head  to  foot  in  the  blood  of  virgins.  This 
determines  Constantino  to  sacrifice  all  that  he  holds 
dearest  in  the  world.  He  kills  his  three  sons,  and 
prepares  a  bath  of  their  blood,  which  restores  his  old 
benefactor  to  health.  But  the  Saint  of  Compostella 
has  still  his  eye  upon  his  servants.  A  miracle  brings 
the  three  boys  back  to  life.  They  are  found  with 
golden  apples  in  their  hands,  and  the  play  ends  with  a 
general  thanksgiving.  The  prosy  bluntness  with 
which  the  incidents  of  this  strange  story  are  treated  as 
matter  of  fact,  is  scarcely  less  remarkable  than  the 
immorality  which  substitutes  mere  thaumaturgy  for 
the  finer  instincts  of  humanity.  The  exaggerated 
generosity  of  Constantino  might  be  paralleled  from 
hundreds  of  nauelle.  This  one  virtue  seems  to  have 
had  extraordinary  fascination  for  the  Italians.  /  tre 
Pellegrini  is  based  upon  a  legend  of  medieval  celebrity, 
versified  by  Southey  in  his  "  Pilgrimage  to  Compostella." ] 
A  father,  a  mother,  and  a  son  of  great  personal  beauty 
set  forth  together  for  the  shrine  of  S.  lago.  On  the 
road  they  put  up  at  an  inn,  where  Falconetta,  the  host's 
daughter,  falls  in  love  with  the  boy  and  tempts  him. 
Thwarted  in  her  will,  she  vows  to  ruin  him ;  and  for 
this  purpose,  puts  a  silver  cup  into  his  traveling  bag. 
In  the  morning  the  pilgrims  are  overtaken  by  the 

1  Sacrt  Rappr.  Hi.  466. 


INADEQUACY   OF   RESULTS.  357 

police,  who  find  the  cup  and  hang  the  beautiful  young 
man.  The  parents  complete  their  vow,  and  on  the 
way  back  discover  their  son  upon  the  gallows  alive 
and  well.  Falconetta  is  burned,  and  her  parents  are 
hanged — the  old  host  remarking,  not  without  humor, 
that,  though  he  was  innocent  of  this  crime,  he  had 
murdered  enough  people  in  his  day  to  have  deserved 
his  fate.  The  style  of  this  play  merits  more  praise 
than  can  be  bestowed  on  the  Rappresentazioni  in 
general.  Falconetta  is  a  real  theatrical  character,  and 
the  bustle  of  the  inn  on  the  arrival  of  the  guests  is 
executed  with  dramatic  vigor. 

In  their  Sacre  Rappresentazioni  the  Florentines 
advanced  to  the  very  verge  of  the  true  drama.  After 
adapting  the  Miracle-plays  of  medieval  orthodoxy  to 
their  stage,  they  versified  the  Legends  of  the  Saints, 
and  went  so  far  as  to  dramatize  novels  of  a  purely 
secular  character.  The  Figliuol  Prodi  go  and  the 
farce  appended  to  the  Pellegrino  contain  the  germs  of 
vernacular  comedy.  S.  Maddalena  is  a  complete 
character.  S.  Uliva  is  delicately  sketched  and  well 
sustained.  The  situation  at  the  opening  of  the  Tre 
Pellegrini  is  worked  out  with  real  artistic  skill. 
Lastly,  in  the  Esaltazione  della  Croce  a  regular  five- 
act  tragedy  was  attempted. 

From  the  oratories  of  the  Compagnie  and  the 
parlors  of  the  convents  this  peculiar  form  of  art  was 
extended  to  the  Courts  and  public  theaters.  Poliziano 
composed  a  Rappresentazione  on  the  classical  fable  of 
Orpheus,  and  Niccolo  da  Correggio  another  on  the 
myth  of  Cephalus  and  Procris.1  Other  attempts  to 
»  The  date  of  the  former  is  probably  1472,  ot  the  latter  1486. 


358  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

i 

secularize  the  religious  drama  followed,  until,  in  i52i, 
Francesco  Mantovano  put  the  contemporary  history  of 
the  French  General  Lautrec  upon  the  boards. 

Still  the  fact  remains  that  the  Sacre  Rappresen- 
tazioni  did  not  lead  to  the  production  of  a  national 
Italian  theater.  If  we  turn  to  the  history  of  our 
Elizabethan  stage,  we  shall  find  that,  after  the  age  of 
the  Miracles  and  Moralities  had  passed,  a  new  and 
independent  work  of  art,  emanating  from  the  creative 
genius  of  Marlowe  and  Shakspere,  put  England  in 
the  possession  of  that  great  rarity,  a  Drama  commen- 
surate with  the  whole  life  of  the  nation  at  one  of  its 
most  brilliant  epochs.  To  this  accomplishment  of  the 
dramatic  art  the  Italians  never  attained.  The  causes 
of  their  failure  will  form  the  subject  of  a  separate 
inquiry  when  we  come  to  consider  the  new  direction 
taken  by  the  playwrights  at  the  Courts  of  Ferrara  and 
Rome. 

As  an  apology  for  the  space  here  devoted  to  the 
analysis  of  plays  childish  in  their  subject-matter, 
prosaic  in  their  treatment,  and  fruitless  of  results,  it 
may  be  urged  that  in  the  Sacre  Rappresentazioni 
better  than  elsewhere  we  can  study  the  limitations 
of  the  popular  Italian  genius  at  the  moment  when  the 
junction  was  effected  between  humanism  and  the  spirit 
of  the  people. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

LORENZO     DE*    MEDICI     AND     POLIZIANO. 

Period  from  147010  1530— Methods  of  treating  it — By  Chrono:ogy— By 
Places — By  Subjects — Renascence  of  Italian — At  Florence,  Ferrara, 
Naples  —  The  New  Italy  —  Forty  Years  of  Peace  —  Lorenzo  de 
Medici — His  Admiration  for  and  Judgment  of  Italian  Poetry — His 
Privileges  as  a  Patron  —  His  Rime — The  Death  of  Simonetta— 
Lucrezia  Donati — Lorenzo's  Descriptive  Power — The  Selve — The 
Ambra — La  Nencia — I  Beoni — His  Sacred  Poems — Carnival  and 
Dance  Songs — Carri  and  Trionfi — Savonarola — The  Mask  of  Peni- 
tence— Leo  X.  in  Florence,  1513 — Pageant  of  the  Golden  Age — 
Angelo  Poliziano — His  Place  in  Italian  Literature — Le  Stanze — 
Treatment  of  the  Octave  Stanza — Court  Poetry — Mechanism  and 
Adornment — The  Orfeo — Orpheus,  the  Ideal  of  the  Cinque  Cento — 
Its  Dramatic  Qualities — Chorus  of  Maenads — Poliziano's  Love  Poems 
— Rispetti — Florentine  Love — La  Bella  Simonetta — Study  and  Coun- 
try Life. 

IN  dealing  with  the  mass  of  Italian  literature  between 
the  dates  1470  and  1530,  several  methods  suggest 
themselves,  each  of  which  offers  certain  advantages, 
while  none  is  wholly  satisfactory.  In  the  first  place 
we  might  adopt  a  chronological  division,  and  arrange 
the  chief  authors  of  whom  we  have  to  treat,  by  periods. 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  Poliziano,  Luigi,  Pulci,  Boiardo, 
and  Sannazzaro  would  be  the  leading  names  in  the 
first  group.  In  the  second  we  should  place  Ariosto, 
Machiavelli,  Guicciardini  and  the  minor  historians  of 
Florence.  Bembo  would  lead  a  third  class,  including 
Castiglione,  La  Casa,  and  the  Petrarchistic  poets  of  the 
Academies.  A  fourth  would  be  headed  by  Pietro 


360  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Aretino,  and  would  embrace  the  burlesque  writers  and 
minor  critical  prosaists  of  the  decadence.  The  advan- 
tage of  this  method  is  that  it  corresponds  to  a  certain 
regular  progression  in  the  evolution  of  Italian  genius 
during  that  brief  space  of  brilliant  activity.  Yet  the 
chronological  stages  are  not  sufficiently  well  marked  to 
justify  its  exclusive  adoption.  The  first  group  is 
separated  from  the  rest  by  a  real  interval,  since  the 
men  who  compose  it  died,  with  one  exception,  before 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  about  the  year  of 
Charles  VIII. 's  entrance  into  Italy.1  But  the  authors 
of  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  groups  lived  almost 
contemporaneously,  covering  the  whole  period  of 
Italy's  greatest  literary  glory  and  deepest  national 
discomfiture,  and  witnessing  the  final  extinction  of  her 
liberty  in  the  settlement  effected  by  the  policy  of 
Charles  V.2  Nor,  again,  can  we  trace  in  the  several 
phases  of  literature  they  represent,  so  clear  a  process 
of  expansion  as  may  be  detected  in  the  successive 
stages  of  artistic  or  humanistic  development.  When 
the  work  effected  by  the  first  group  was  accomplished, 
both  the  language  and  the  literature  of  Italy  became 
in  a  true  sense  national,  and  the  cultivated  classes  of 
all  districts,  trained  in  the  common  discipline  of 
humanistic  studies,  set  themselves  with  one  accord  and 
simultaneously  to  the  task  of  polishing  the  mother 
tongue.  This  fact  in  the  history  of  Italian  literature 

1  Lorenzo  de*  Medici,  b.  1448,  d.  1492.  Poliziano,  b.  1454,  d.  1494. 
Luigi  Pulci,  b.  1432,  d.  about  1487.  Boiardo,  b.  about  1434,  d.  1494. 
Sannazzaro,  b.  1458,  d.  1530. 

*  Machiavelli,  b.  1469,  d.  1527.  Anosto,  b.  1474,  d.  1533.  Guicciar- 
dini,  b.  1482,  d.  1540.  Bembo,  b.  1470,  d.  1547.  Castiglione,  b.  1478,  d. 
1529.  LaCasa,  b.  1503,  d.  1556.  Pietro  Aretino,  b.  1492,  d.  1557. 


METHODS    OF   CLASSIFICATION.  361 

suggests  a  second  method  of  classification.  We  might 
take  the  three  chief  centers  of  renascence  at  the  close 
of  the  fifteenth  century — Florence,  Ferrara,  Naples — 
and  show  how  the  local  characteristics  of  these  cities 
affected  their  great  writers.  Rome  during  the  ponti- 
ficate of  Leo  X.;  Urbino  under  the  rule  of  Guidubaldo 
Montefeltre ;  Milan  in  the  days  of  the  last  Sforzas; 
Venice  at  the  epoch  of  Aide's  settlement ;  might  next 
be  chosen  to  illustrate  the  subsequent  growth  of 
Italian  culture,  when  it  ceased  to  be  Tuscan,  Neapo- 
litan, and  Ferrarese.  Yet  though  this  local  method 
of  arrangement  offers  many  advantages,  and  has  the 
grand  merit  of  fixing  the  attention  upon  one  important 
feature  of  intellectual  life  in  Italy — its  many-sidedness 
and  diversity,  due  to  the  specific  qualities  of  cities 
vying  with  each  other  in  a  common  exercise  of  energy 
— still  it  would  not  do  for  the  historian  of  Italian 
culture  at  one  of  its  most  brilliant  moments  to  accen- 
tuate minor  differences,  when  it  ought  to  be  his  object 
to  portray  the  genius  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  In  a 
word,  this  classification  has  the  same  defect  as  the 
treatment  of  the  arts  by  Schools.1  Moreover,  it  cannot 
fail  to  lead  to  repetition  and  confusion  ;  for  though  the 
work  we  have  to  analyze  was  carried  on  in  several 
provinces,  yet  each  Court  and  each  city  produced 
material  of  the  same  general  character.  Novels,  for 
example,  were  written  at  Florence  as  well  as  Milan. 
Rome  saw  the  first  representation  of  comedies  no  less 
than  Ferrara.  The  romantic  epic  was  not  confined  to 
the  Court  of  the  Estensi,  nor  dissertations  on  the 
gentle  life  to  that  of  Urbino.  We  are  led  by  the 
»  See  Ffnt  Arts,  p.  183. 


362  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

foregoing  considerations  to  yet  a  third  method  of 
arrangement.  Would  it  not  be  scientific  to  divide  the 
literature  of  the  Renaissance  into  its  chief  branches, 
and  to  treat  of  the  romantic  epic,  the  novella,  the  stage, 
the  idyll,  lyric  verse,  essays  in  prose,  histories,  and  so 
forth,  under  separate  chapters?  Undoubtedly  there  is 
much  to  say  for  such  a  treatment  of  the  subject.  Yet 
when  we  consider  that  it  necessitates  our  bringing  the 
same  authors  under  review  in  several  successive  sec- 
tions, confuses  chronology,  and  effaces  local  distinctions, 
it  will  be  seen  that  to  follow  this  system  exclusively 
would  be  unwise.  It  is  too  strictly  analytical  for  our 
purpose.  That  purpose  is  to  draw  a  portrait  of  the 
Italian  spirit  as  expressed  in  the  vernacular  literature 
of  about  seventy  years  of  exceptional  splendor;  and 
perhaps  it  will  be  conceded  by  the  student  that  instinct, 
conscious  of  the  end  in  view,  conscious  also  of  these 
several  methods,  but  unwilling  to  be  hampered  by  any 
one  of  them  too  rigorously  followed  out,  will  be  a  safer 
guide  than  formal  accuracy. 

I  therefore  propose  in  the  remaining  chapters  of 
this  book  to  adopt  a  mixed  method,  partaking  of  the 
chronological  in  so  far  as  I  shall  attempt  to  show  a 
certain  process  of  evolution  from  the  renascence  led 
by  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  to  the  decadence  typified  in 
Pietro  Aretino,  insisting  upon  local  peculiarities  where 
it  can  be  clearly  proved  that  these  contributed  an 
important  element  to  the  total  result,  and  relying  on 
the  classification  by  subjects  for  bringing  scattered 
details  under  general  consideration.  Five  men  of  the 
highest  eminence  mark  stages  in  the  history  we  have 
to  review.  These  are  Poliziano,  Ariosto  and  Machi- 


MEN  AND    CITIES.  363 

avelli,  Bembo  and  Pietro  Aretino.  Chronologically, 
they  represent  four  moments  of  development — the 
initial,  the  consummate,  the  academical,  and  the  deca- 
dent. But  if  we  discard  chronology  and  regard  their 
intellectual  qualities  alone,  we  might  reduce  them 
to  three.  Merging  Poliziano  and  Bembo  in  Ariosto, 
retaining  Machiavelli  and  Pietro  Aretino,  we  obtain 
the  three  prominent  phases  of  Renaissance  culture  in 
Italy  —  firstly,  serene,  self -satisfied,  triumphant  art, 
glorying  in  the  beauty  of  form  for  form's  sake,  and 
aiming  at  perfection  in  style  of  sunny  and  delightful 
loveliness;  secondly,  profound  scientific  analysis,  taking 
society  for  its  object,  dissecting  human  history  and 
institutions  without  prejudice  or  prepossession,  un- 
qualified by  religious  or  ethical  principles,  pushing  its 
logical  method  to  the  utmost  verge  of  audacity,  and 
startling  the  world  with  terror  by  the  results  of  its 
materialistic  philosophy;  thirdly,  moral  corruption  un- 
abashed and  unrestrained,  destitute  of  shame  because 
devoid  of  conscience,  boldly  asserting  itself  and  claim- 
ing the  right  to  rule  society  with  cynical  effrontery. 
Round  Ariosto  are  grouped  the  romantic  and  idyllic 
poets,  the  novelists  and  comic  playwrights,  all  the 
tribe  of  joyous  merry-makers,  who  translated  into 
prose  and  verse  the  beauty  found  in  painting  of  the 
golden  age.  With  Machiavelli  march  the  historians 
and  political  philosophers,  the  school  of  Pomponazzi 
and  the  materialistic  analysts,  who  led  the  way  for  a 
new  birth  of  science  in  the  Baconian  speculations  of 
the  Cosentine  academy.  Aretino  is  the  coryphaeus  of 
a  multitude  of  scribes  and  courtiers,  literary  gladiators, 
burlesque  authors  of  obscene  Capitoli,  men  of  evil 


364  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

character,  who  used  the  pen   for  poniard,  and  were 
the  fit  successors  of  invective-writers. 

If  we  turn  from  men  to  cities,  and  seek  to  define 
the  parts  played  by  the  several  communities  in  this 
work  of  creating  an  Italian  literature,  we  shall  find 
that  Florence  fixes  the  standard  of  language,  ar.d 
dominates  the  nation  by  the  fame  of  her  three  poets 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  Florence,  moreover,  gives 
birth  to  Machiavelli,  Guicciardini,  and  the  political 
theorists  who  form  a  group  around  them.  Florentine 
wit  and  humor  lend  a  certain  pungency  to  all  the 
products  of  the  golden  age.  Naples  adds  the  luxury 
of  southern  color,  felt  in  Sannazzaro's  waxen  para- 
graphs and  Pontano's  voluptuous  hendecasyllables. 
Ferrara  develops  the  chivalrous  elements  of  the  ro- 
mantic epic,  shelters  Ariosto,  and  produces  the  pas- 
toral drama,  that  eminently  characteristic  product  of 
the  late  Renaissance.  Milan  is  the  home  of  Bandello, 
who  takes  the  first  rank  among  the  novelists  and  leads 
a  school  of  Lombard  writers  in  that  style.  Rome 
does  little  for  the  general  culture  of  the  nation,  except 
that  in  the  age  of  Leo  the  Papal  Court  formed  a  cen- 
ter for  studious  men  of  all  classes  and  qualities.  Her 
place  in  literature  is  therefore  analogous  to  that  she 
occupies  in  art  and  scholarship.1  Aretino  chooses  the 
city  of  the  lagoons  for  his  retreat,  not  without  a  certain 
propriety;  for  Venice  had  become  the  Paris  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  here  the  press  was  more  active 
than  elsewhere  in  Italy.  His  instinct  led  the  master 
of  lampoon,  the  prince  of  pamphleteers,  to  the  city 
which  combined  the  utmost  license  of  printing  with 

1  See  Revival  of  Learning,  pp.  215  et  seq.\  Fine  Arts,  pp.  183  et  seq 


RENASCENCE    OF  ITALIAN.  365 

the  most  highly  developed  immorality  of  manners. 
Thus,  seen  from  many  points  of  view  and  approached 
with  different  objects  of  study,  men,  places,  and  matter 
alike  furnish  their  own  pivots  for  treatment.  Italy, 
unlike  England  and  France,  has  no  political  and  in- 
tellectual metropolis,  no  London  and  no  Paris,  where 
the  historian  may  take  his  stand  securely  to  survey 
the  manifold  activities  of  the  race  as  from  a  natural 
center.  He  must  be  content  to  shift  his  ground  and 
vary  his  analytic  method,  keeping  steadily  in  mind 
those  factors  which  by  their  interaction  and  combina- 
tion determine  the  phenomena  he  has  in  view. 

We  are  now  at  length  upon  the  threshold  of  the  true 
Renaissance.  The  division  between  popular  literature 
and  humanistic  culture  is  about  to  end.  Classic  form, 
appropriated  by  the  scholars,  will  be  given  to  the 
prose  and  poetry  of  the  Italian  language.  The  fusion, 
divined  and  attempted,  rather  than  accomplished  by 
Alberti,  will  be  achieved.  Men  as  great  as  Machia- 
velli  and  Ariosto  henceforth  need  not  preface  their 
cose  volgari  with  apologies.  The  new  literature  is  no 
longer  Tuscan,  but  Italian — national  in  the  widest  and 
deepest  sense  of  the  word,  when  Venetian  Bembo, 
Neapolitan  Sannazzaro,  Ariosto  from  Reggio,  Boiardo 
Count  of  Scandiano,  Castiglione  the  Mantuan  and 
Tasso  the  Bergamasque  vie  with  Tuscan  Pulci  and 
Poliziano,  Machiavelli  and  Guicciardini,  in  the  creation 
of  the  golden  age. 

The  renascence  of  Italian  took  place  almost  simul- 
taneously in  three  centers:  at  Florence  under  the 
protection  of  the  Medici,  at  Ferrara  in  the  castle  of  the 
Estensi,  and  at  Naples  in  the  Aragonese  Court 


366  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Rome  from  the  pontificate  of  Innocent  VIII.  to  that 
of  Leo  X.  was  almost  dumb  and  deaf  to  literature 
Venice  waited  till  the  period  of  the  press.  Milan 
produced  nothing.  It  was  but  gradually  that  the  wave 
of  national  culture  reached  the  minor  states.  The 
three  cities  to  which  Italy  owed  the  resurrection  of 
her  genius  were  ruled  by  princes,  and  the  new  litera- 
ture felt  the  influence  of  Courts  from  the  commence- 
ment. Indeed,  the  whole  conditions  of  Italy  had 
been  altered  since  the  death  of  Boccaccio  in  1376. 
The  middle  ages  had  been  swept  away.  Of  their 
modes  of  thought,  religious  beliefs,  political  ideals, 
scholastic  theories,  scarcely  a  vestige  remained.  Among 
the  cities  which  had  won  or  kept  their  independence 
during  the  fourteenth  century,  only  one  remained  free 
from  a  master's  yoke;  and  even  Venice,  though  she 
showed  no  outward  signs  of  decadence,  had  reached 
the  utmost  verge  of  her  development. .  The  citizens 
who  had  fought  the  battles  of  the  Communes  round 
their  banners  and  their  sacred  cars,  were  now  quiet 
burghers,  paying  captains  of  adventure  to  wage  mimic 
warfare  with  political  or  commercial  rivals  in  neigh- 
boring States.  A  class  of  professional  diplomatists 
corresponding  to  these  mercenary  war-contractors 
had  arisen,  selected  from  the  ranks  of  the  scholars  for 
their  rhetorical  gifts  and  command  of  Latin  style. 
The  humanists  themselves  constituted  a  new  and 
powerful  body,  a  nation  within  the  nation,  separated 
from  its  higher  social  and  political  interests,  selfish, 
restless,  greedy  for  celebrity,  nomadic,  disengaged 
from  local  ties,  conscious  of  their  strength,  and  sway- 
ing with  the  vast  prestige  of  learning  in  that  age 


SOCIAL    CONDITIONS.  367 

the  intellectual  destinies  of  the  race.  Insolent  and 
ambitious  in  all  that  concerned  their  literary  preten- 
sions, these  men  were  servile  in  their  private  life. 
They  gained  their  daily  bread  by  flatteries  and 
menaces,  hanging  about  the  Courts  of  petty  despots, 
whose  liberality  they  paid  with  adulation  or  quickened 
with  the  threat  of  infamy  in  libels.  At  the  same  time 
the  humanists,  steeped  in  the  best  and  worst  that 
could  be  extracted  from  the  classics,  confounding  the 
dross  of  Greek  and  Roman  literature  with  its  precious 
metal  in  their  indiscriminate  worship  of  antiquity,  and 
debarred  through  want  of  criticism  from  assimilating 
the  noblest  spirit  of  the  pagan  culture,  had  created  a 
new  mental  atmosphere.  The  work  they  accom- 
plished for  Italy,  though  mixed  in  quality,  had  two  un- 
deniable merits.  Not  only  had  they  restored  the 
heritage  of  the  past  and  broken  down  the  barrier 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world,  bringing 
back  the  human  consciousness  from  the  torpor  of  the 
middle  ages  to  a  keen  and  vivid  sense  of  its  own  unity: 
but  they  so  penetrated  and  imbued  each  portion  of  the 
Italian  nation  with  their  enthusiasm,  that,  intellectually 
at  least,  the  nation  was  now  one  and  ready  for  a  simul- 
taneous progress  on  the  path  of  culture.1 

It  so  happened  that  at  this  very  moment,  when 
the  unity  of  Italy  in  art  and  scholarship  had  been 
achieved,  external  quiet  succeeded  to  the  discords  of 
three  centuries.  The  ancient  party-cries  of  Emperor 
and  Church,  of  Guelf  and  Ghibelline,  of  noble  and 

1  It  is  right  to  say  here  that  considerable  portions  of  Southern  Italy 
the  Marches  of  Ancona  and  Romagna,  Piedmont  and  Liguria,  remained 
outside  the  Renaissance  movement  at  this  period. 


368  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

burgher,  of  German  and  Latin  ingredients  within  the 
body  politic  had  gradually  ceased  and  been  forgotten. 
The  Italic  element,  deriving  its  instincts  from  Roman 
civilization,  triumphed  over  the  alien  and  the  feudal ; 
and  though  this  victory  was  attended  with  the  decay 
of  the  Communes  that  had  striven  to  achieve  it,  yet 
the  final  outcome  was  a  certain  homogeneity  of  condi- 
tions in  all  the  great  centers  of  national  life.  Italy 
became  a  net-work  of  cultivated  democracies,  ruled 
by  tyrants  of  different  degrees.  The  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century  witnessed  the  commencement  of  that 
halcyon  period  of  forty  years'  tranquillity,  destined  to 
be  broken  by  the  descent  of  Charles  VIII.,  in  1494, 
upon  which  Machiavelli  and  Guicciardini  from  amid 
the  tempests  of  the  next  half  century  looked  back  with 
eyes  of  wonder  and  of  envy.  Constantinople  fell, 
and  the  undoubted  primacy  of  the  civilized  races 
came  to  the  Italians.  Lorenzo  de*  Medici  was 
regarded  as  the  man  who,  by  his  political  ability  and 
firm  grasp  of  the  requisite  conditions  for  maintaining 
peace  in  the  peninsula,  had  established  and  secured 
the  equilibrium  between  mutually  jealous  and  antago- 
nistic States.  Whether  the  merit  of  that  repose,  so 
fruitful  of  results  in  art  and  literature  for  the  Italians, 
was  really  due  to  Lorenzo's  sagacity,  or  whether  the 
shifting  forces  of  the  nation  had  become  stationary  for 
a  season  by  the  operation  of  circumstances,  may  fairly 
be  questioned.  Yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  un- 
precedented prosperity  of  the  people  coincided  with 
his  administration  of  Florence,  and  ended  when  he 
ceased  to  guide  the  commonwealth.  It  was  at  any 
rate  a  singular  good  fortune  tfrat  connected  the  name 


LORENZ&S    PLACE    IN  HISTORY.  369 

of  this  extraordinary  man  with  the  high-tide  of 
material  prosperity  in  Italy  and  with  the  resurrection 
of  her  national  literature. 

The  figure  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  has  more  than 
once  already  crossed  the  stage  of  this  history.1 
Whether  dealing  with  the  political  conditions,  or  the 
scholarship,  or  the  fine  arts  of  the  Renaissance,  it  is 
impossible  to  omit  his  name.  There  is  therefore  now 
no  need  to  sketch  his  character  or  to  inquire  into  the 
incidents  of  his  Florentine  administration.  It  will 
suffice  to  remind  the  readers  of  this  book  that  he  finally 
succeeded  in  so  clinching  the  power  of  the  Casa  Medici 
that  no  subsequent  revolutions  were  able  to  destroy  it. 
The  part  he  played  as  a  patron  of  artists  and  scholars, 
and  as  a  writer  of  Italian,  was  subordinate  to  his 
political  activity  in  circumstances  of  peculiar  difficulty. 
While  controlling  the  turbulent  democracy  of  Florence 
and  gaining  recognition  for  his  tyranny  from  jealous 
princes,  he  still  contrived  to  lead  his  age  in  every 
branch  of  culture,  deserving  the  magnificent  eulogium 
of  Poliziano,  who  sang  of  him  in  the  Nutricia*: 

Tu  vero  aeternam,  per  avi  vestigia  Cosmi 
%  Perque  patris  (quis  enim  pietate  insignior  illo  ?), 

Ad  famam  eluctans,  cujus  securus  ad  umbram 
Fulmina  bellorum  ridens  procul  aspicit  Arnus, 
Maeoniae  caput,  o  Laurens,  quern  plena  senatu 
Curia  quemque  gravi  populus  stupet  ore  loquentem 
Si  fas  est,  tua  nunc  humili  patere  otia  cantu 
Secessusque  sacros  avidas  me  ferre  sub  auras. 
Namque,  importunas  mulcentem  pectine  curas, 
Umbrosas  recolo  te  quondam  vallis  in  antrum 

1  See  Age  of  the  Despots,  pp.  277,  520,  542;  Revival  of  Learning, 
pp.  314-323;  Fine  Arts,  pp.  263,  387.  See  also  Sketches  and  Studies  fn 
Italy t  Article  on  Florence  and  the  Medici. 

•  Op.  Laf.  p.  423. 


370  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

Monticolam  traxisse  deam:  vidi  ipse  corollas 
Nexantem,  numerosque  tuos  prona  aure  bibentem.  .  .  . 
Quodque  alii  studiumque  vocant  durumque  laborem, 
Hie  tibi  ludus  erit:  fessus  civilibus  actis, 
Hue  is  emeritas  acuens  ad  carmina  vires. 
Felix  ingenio  !  felix  cui  pectore  tantas 
Instaurare  vices,  cui  fas  tarn  magna  capaci 
Alternare  animo,  et  varias  ita  nectere  curas  f 

Lorenzo  de'  Medici  was  the  last  apologist  for  the 
mother  speech,  as  he  was  the  first  and  chief  inaugurator 
of  the  age  when  such  apologies  were  no  longer  to  be 
needed.  He  took  a  line  somewhat  different  from 
Alberti's  in  his  defense  of  Italian,  proving  not  merely 
its  utility  but  boldly  declaring  its  equality  with  the 
classic  languages.  We  possess  a  short  essay  of  his, 
written  with  this  purpose,  where  he  bestows  due  praise 
on  Dante,  Boccaccio  and  Guido  Cavalcanti,  and  affirms 
in  the  teeth  of  the  humanists  that  Petrarch  wrote 
better  love-poems  than  Ovid,  Tibullus,  Catullus  or 
Propertius.1  Again,  in  his  epistle  to  Federigo  of 
Aragon,  sent  with  a  MS.  volume  containing  a  collec- 
tion of  early  Tuscan  poetry,  he  passes  acute  and  sym- 
pathetic judgments  on  the  lyrists  from  Guittone  of 
Arezzo  to  Cino  da  Pistoja,  proving  that  he  had  studied 
their  works  to  good  purpose  and  had  formed  a  correct 
opinion  of  the  origins  of  Italian  literature.2  Lorenzo 
does  not  write  like  a  man  ashamed  of  the  vernacular  or 
forced  to  use  it  because  he  can  command  no  better.  He 
is  sure  of  the  justice  of  his  cause,  and  determined  by  pre- 
cept and  example  and  by  the  prestige  of  his  princely 
rank  to  bring  the  literature  he  loves  into  repute  again. 


'  Poesie  di  Lorenzo  de1  Medici  (Firenze,  Barbera,  1859),  PP- 
-  Did.  pp.  24-34.     Notice  especially  the  verdict  on  Cino  and  Dante, 
p.  33- 


HIS    FEELING    FOR    ITALIAN.  371 

No  one  could  have  been  better  fitted  for  the  task. 
Unlike  Albert'.,  Lorenzo  was  a  Florentine  of  the 
Florentines,  Tuscan  to  the  backbone,  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  his  city,  a  passionate  lover  of  her  customs  and 
pastimes,  a  complete  master  of  her  vernacular.  His 
education,  though  it  fitted  him  for  Platonic  discussions 
with  Ficino  and  rendered  him  an  amateur  of  humanistic 
culture,  had  failed  to  make  a  pedant  of  him.  Much  as 
he  appreciated  the  classics,  he  preferred  his  Tuscan 
poets;  and  what  he  learned  at  school,  he  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  study  of  the  native  literature.  Conse- 
quently his  style  is  always  idiomatic ;  whether  he  seeks 
the  elevation  of  grave  diction  or  reproduces  the  talk 
of  the  streets,  he  uses  language  like  a  man  who  has 
habitually  spoken  the  words  which  he  commits  to  paper. 
His  brain  was  vigorous,  and  his  critical  faculty  acute. 
He  lived,  moreover,  in  close  sympathy  with  his  age, 
never  rising  above  it,  but  accurately  representing  its 
main  tendencies.  At  the  same  time  he  was  sufficiently 
a  poet  to  delight  a  generation  that  had  seen  no  great 
writer  of  verse  since  Boccaccio.  Though  hisjyork  is 
in  no  sense  absolutely  first  rate,  he  wrote  nothing  that 
a  man  of  ability  might  not  have  been  pleased  to  own. 

Lorenzo's  first  essays  in  poetry  were  sonnets  and 
canzoni  in  the  style  of  the  trecento.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  classify  him,  as  some  historians  of  literature  have 
done,  with  the  deliberate  imitators  of  Petrarch,  or  to 
judge  his  work  by  its  deflection  from  the  Petrarchistic 
standard  of  pure  style.  His  youthful  lyrics  show  the 
appreciative  study  of  Dante  and  Guido  Cavalcanti  no 
less  than  of  the  poet  of  Vaucluse;  and  though  they 
affect  the  conventional  melancholy  of  the  Petrarchistic 


37*  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

mannerism,  they  owe  their  force  to  the  strong  objective 
spirit  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Lorenzo's  originality 
\  consists  in  the  fusion  he  effected  between  the  form  of 
the  love-lyric  handed  down  from  Petrarch  and  the 
realistic  genius  of  the  age  of  Ghirlandajo.  This  is 
especially  noticeable  in  the  sonnets  that  describe  the 
beauties  of  the  country.  They  are  not  penetrated  with 
emotion  permeating  and  blurring  the  impressions  made 
by  natural  objects  on  the  poet's  mind.  His  landscapes 
are  not  hazy  with  the  atmosphere,  now  luminous,  now 
somber,  of  a  lover's  varying  mood.  On  the  contrary, 
every  object  is  defined  and  classified ;  and  the  lady  sits 
like  a  beautiful  figure  in  a  garden,  painted  with  no  less 
loving  care  in  all  its  details  tfian  herself.1  These  pic- 
tures, very  delicate  in  their  minute  and  truthful  touches, 
affect  our  fancy  like  a  panel  of  Benozzo  Gozzoli,  who 
omits  no  circumstance  of  the  scene  he  undertakes  to 
reproduce,  crowds  it  with  incidents  and  bestows  the 
same  attention  upon  the  principal  subjects  and  the 
accessories.  The  central  emotion  of  Lorenzo's  verse 
is  scarcely  love,  but  delight  in  the  country — the  Floren- 

H  tine's  enjoyment  of  the  villa,  with  its  woods  and  rivulets, 
the  pines  upon  the  hillsides,  the  song-birds,  and  the 
pleasures  of  the  chase. 

The  following  sonnet  might  be  chosen  as  a  fair 
specimen  of  the  new  manner  introduced  into  literature 
by  Lorenzo.  Its  classical  coloring,  deeply,  felt  and  yet 
somewhat  frigid,  has  the  true  stamp  of  the  quattrocento 2 . 

1  Read  for  instance  No.  xii.  in  the  edition  cited  above,  "  Vidi  ma- 
donna sopra  un  fresco  rio; "  No.  xviii.  "Con  passi  sparti,"  etc.;  No 
xlvii.,  "  Belle  fresche  c  purpuree  viole." 

*  Ibid.  p.  97. 


HIS    LOVE    AND    SENSE    OF  NATUKE.  373 

Leave  thy  beloved  isle,  thou  Cyprian  queen; 

Leave  thine  enchanted  realm  so  delicate, 

Goddess  of  love!    Come  where  the  rivulet 

Bathes  the  short  turf  and  blades  of  tenderest  green  1 
Come  to  these  shades,  these  airs  that  stir  the  screen 

Of  whispering  branches  and  their  murmurs  set 

To  Philomel's  enamored  canzonet: 

Choose  this  for  thine  own  land,  thy  loved  demesne! 
And  if  thou  com'st  by  these  clear  rills  to  reign, 

Bring  thy  dear  son,  thy  darling  son,  with  thee; 

For  there  be  none  that  own  his  empire  here. 
From  Dian  steal  the  vestals  of  her  train, 

Who  roam  the  woods  at  will,  from  danger  free, 

And  know  not  Love,  nor  his  dread  anger  fear. 

That  Lorenzo  was  incapable  of  loving  as  Dante  or 
Petrarch  or  even  Boccaccio  loved,  is  obvious  in  every 
verse  he  wrote.  The  spirit  in  him  neither  triumphs 
over  the  flesh  nor  struggles  with  it,  nor  yet  submits  a 
willing  and  intoxicated  victim.  It  remains  apart  and 
cold,  playing  with  fancies,  curiously  surveying  the  car- 
nival of  lusts  that  hold  their  revel  in  the  breast 
whereof  it  is  the  lord.  Under  these  conditions  he 
could  take  the  wife  his  mother  found  for  him  at  Rome, 
and  record  the  fact  in  his  diary l ;  he  could  while  away 
his  leisure  with  venal  beauties  or  country  girls  at  his 
villas;  but  of  love  in  the  poet's  sense  he  had  no  knowl- 
edge. It  is  true  that,  nurtured  as  he  was  in  the  tradi 
tions  of  fourteenth-century  verse,  he  thought  it  neces 
sary  to  establish  a  titular  mistress  of  his  heart.  The 
account  he  gives  of  this  proceeding  in  a  commentary 
on  his  own  sonnets,  composed  after  the  model  of  the 
Vita  Nuova,  is  one  of  his  best  pieces  of  writing.  He 
describes  the  day  when  the  beautiful  Simonetta 

1  "  Tolsi  donna  .  .  .  owero  mi  fu  data,"  from  the  Ricordt  printed 
in  the  Appendix  to  Roscoe's  Life. 


374  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Cattaneo,  his  brother  Giuliano's  lady,  was  carried  to 
her  grave  with  face  uncovered,  lying  beneath  the  sun- 
light on  her  open  bier.  All  Florence  was  touched  to 
tears  by  the  sight,  and  the  poets  poured  forth  elegies. 
The  month  was  April,  and  the  young  earth  seemed  to 
have  put  on  her  robe  of  flowers  only  to  make  the 
pathos  of  that  death  more  poignant.  Then,  says 
Lorenzo:  "  Night  came;  and  I  with  a  friend  most  dear 
to  me  went  communing  about  the  loss  we  all  had  suf- 
fered. While  we  spoke,  the  air  being  exceedingly 
serene,  we  turned  our  eyes  to  a  star  of  surpassing 
brightness,  which  toward  the  west  shone  forth  with  such 
luster  as  not  only  to  conquer  all  the  other  stars,  but 
even  to  cast  a  shadow  from  the  objects  that  inter- 
cepted its  light.  We  marveled  at  it  a  while;  and 
then,  turning  to  my  friend,  I  said:  '  There  is  no  need 
for  wonder,  since  the  soul  of  that  most  gentle  lady  has 
either  been  transformed  into  yon  new  star  or  has  joined 
herself  to  it.  And  if  this  be  so,  that  splendor  of  the 
star  is  nowise  to  be  wondered  at;  and  even  as  her 
beauty  in  life  was  of  great  solace  to  our  eyes,  so  now 
let  us  :omfort  ourselves  at  the  present  moment  with 
the  sight  of  so  much  brilliance.  And  if  our  eyes  be 
weak  and  frail  to  bear  such  brightness,  pray  we  to  the 
god,  that  is  to  her  deity,  to  give  them  virtue,  in  order 
that  without  injury  unto  our  sight  we  may  awhile  con- 
template it.'  .  .  .  Then,  forasmuch  as  it  appeared  to 
me  that  this  colloquy  furnished  good  material  for  a 
sonnet,  I  left  my  friend  and  composed  the  following 
verses,  in  which  I  speak  about  the  star  aforesaid: 

O  lucid  star,  that  with  transcendent  light 
Quenchest  of  all  those  neighboring  stars  the  gleam, 


LA    SIMONETTA    AND    LUCREZIA.  375 

Why  thus  beyond  thine  usage  dost  thou  stream, 
Why  art  thou  fain  with  Phoebus  still  to  fight? 

Haply  those  beauteous  eyes,  which  from  our  sight 
Death  stole,  who  now  doth  vaunt  himself  supreme, 
Thou  hast  assumed:  clad  with  their  glorious  beam, 
Well  mayst  thou  claim  the  sun-god's  chariot  bright 

Listen,  new  star,  new  regent  of  the  day, 
Who  with  unwonted  radiance  gilds  our  heaven, 
O  listen,  goddess,  to  the  prayers  we  pray! 

Let  so  much  splendor  from  thy  sphere  be  riven 
That  to  these  eyes,  which  fain  would  weep  alway,  • 

Unblinded,  thy  glad  sight  may  yet  be  given! 

From  that  moment  Lorenzo  began  to  write  poems. 
He  wandered  alone  and  meditated  on  the  sunflower, 
playing  delightfully  unto  himself  with  thoughts  of 
Love  and  Death.  Yet  his  heart  was  empty;  and  like 
Augustine  or  Alastor,  he  could  say:  "  nondum  amabam, 
sed  amare  amabam,  quaerebam  quod  amarem  amans 
amare."  When  a  young  man  is  in  this  mood  it  is  not 
long  before  he  finds  an  object  for  his  adoration.  Lo- 
renzo went  one  day  in  the  same  spring  with  friends  to 
a  house  of  feasting,  where  he  met  with  a  lady  lovelier 
in  his  eyes  even  than  La  Simonetta.  After  the  fashion 
of  his  age,  he  describes  her  physical  and  mental  per- 
fections with  a  minuteness  which  need  not  be  enforced 
upon  a  modern  reader. l  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Lucrezia 
Donati — such  was  the  lady's  name — supplied  Lorenzo 
with  exactly  what  he  had  been  seeking,  an  object  for 
his  literary  exercises.  The  Sonetti,  Canzoni,  and  Selve 
(CAmore  were  the  fruits  of  this  first  passion. 

Though  Lorenzo  was  neither  a  poet  nor  a  lover 
after  the  stamp  of  Dante,  these  juvenile  verses  and  the 

»  " Innamoramento,"  Poesie,  pp.  58-62.  Compare  "Selve  d'  Amorc  ' 
ib.  pp.  172-174. 


376  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

prose  with  which  he  prefaced  them,  show  him  in  a  light 
that  cannot  fail  to  interest  those  who  only  know  the 
statesman  and  the  literary  cynic  of  his  later  years. 
There  is  sincere  fervor  of  romantic  feeling  in  the  pic 
ture  of  the  evening  after  Simonetta's  funeral,  even 
though  the  analytical  temper  of  the  poet's  mind  is  re- 
vealed in  his  exact  description  of  the  shadow  cast  by 
the  planet  he  was  watching.  The  first  meeting  with 
Lucrezia,  again,  is  prettily  described  in  these  stanzas 
of  the  Selve: 

What  time  the  chain  was  forged  which  then  I  bore, 

Air,  earth,  and  heavens  were  linked  in  one  delight; 

The  air  was  never  so  serene  before, 

The  sun  ne'er  shed  such  pure  and  tranquil  light; 

Young  leaves  and  flowers  upon  the  grassy  floor 

Gladdened  the  earth  where  ran  a  streamlet  bright, 

While  Venus  in  her  father's  bosom  lay 

And  smiled  from  heaven  upon  the  spot  that  day. 

She  from  her  brows  divine  and  amorous  breast 

Took  with  both  hands  roses  of  many  a  hue, 

And  showered  them  through  the  heavens  that  slept  in  rest, 

Covering  my  lady  with  their  gracious  dew; 

Jove,  full  of  gladness,  on  that  day  released 

The  ears  of  men,  that  they  might  hear  the  true 

Echoes  of  melody  and  dance  divine, 

Which  fell  from  heaven  in  songs  and  sounds  benign. 

Fair  women  to  that  music  moved  their  feet, 
Inflamed  with  gentle  fire  by  Love's  breath  fanned: 
Behold  yon  lover  with  his  lady  sweet — 
Her  hand  long  yearned  for  clasped  in  his  loved  hand; 
Their  sighs,  their  looks,  which  pangs  of  longing  cheat; 
Brief  words  that  none  but  they  can  understand; 
The  flowers  that  she  lets  fall,  resumed  and  pressed, 
With  kisses  covered,  to  his  head  or  breast. 

Amid  so  many  pleasant  things  and  fair, 
My  loveliest  lady  with  surpassing  grace 
Eclipsed  and  crowned  all  beauties  that  were  there; 
Her  robe  was  white  and  delicate  as  lace; 


ANALYTICAL    IMAGINATION.  377 

And  still  her  eyes,  with  silent  speech  and  rare, 
Talked  to  the  heart,  leaving  the  lips  at  peace: 
Come  to  me,  come,  dear  heart  of  mine,  she  said: 
Here  shall  thy  long  desires  at  rest  be  laid. 

The  impression  of  these  verses  is  hardly  marred  by 
the  prosy  catalogue  of  Lucrezia's  beauties  furnished 
in  the  Innamoramento.  Lorenzo  was  an  analyst.  He 
could  not  escape  from  that  quality  so  useful  to  the 
observer,  so  fatal  to  artists,  if  they  cannot  recompose 
the  data  furnished  by  observation  in  a  new  subjective 
synthesis.  When  we  compare  his  description  of  the 
Age  of  Gold  in  the  Selve^  justly  celebrated  for  its 
brilliancy  and  wealth  of  detail,  with  the  shorter  passage 
from  Poliziano's  Stanze,  we  measure  the  distance  be- 
tween intelligent  study  of  nature  and  the  imagination 
which  unifies  and  gives  new  form  of  life  to  every 
detail.  The  same  end  may  be  more  briefly  attained 
by  a  comparison  of  this  passage  about  roses  from 
Lorenzo's  Corinto  with  a  musical  Bcdlata  of  Poliziano2: 

Into  a  little  close  of  mine  I  went 

One  morning,  when  the  sun  with  his  fresh  light 

Was  rising  all  refulgent  and  unshent. 
Rose-trees  are  planted  there  in  order  bright, 

Whereto  I  turned  charmed  eyes,  and  long  did  stay 

Taking  my  fill  of  that  new-found  delight. 
Red  and  white  roses  bloomed  upon  the  spray; 

One  opened,  leaf  by  leaf,  to  greet  the  morn, 

Shyly  at  first,  then  in  sweet  disarray; 
Another,  yet  a  youngling,  newly  born, 

Scarce  struggled  from  the  bud,  and  there  were  some 

Whose  petals  closed  them  from  the  air  forlorn; 
Another  fell,  and  showered  the  grass  with  bloom; 

Thus  I  beheld  the  roses  dawn  and  die, 

And  one  short  hour  their  loveliness  consume. 

1  Poesic,  pp.  206-213.  '  Ibid.  p.  236. 


378  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

But  while  I  watched  those  languid  petals  He 

Colorless  on  cold  earth,  I  could  but  think 

How  vain  a  thing  is  youthful  bravery. 
Trees  have  their  time  to  bloom  on  winter's  brink; 

Then  the  rathe  blossoms  wither  in  an  hour, 

When  the  brief  days  of  spring  toward  summer  sink; 
The  fruit,  as  yet  unformed,  is  tart  and  sour; 

Little  by  little  it  grows  large,  and  weighs 

The  strong  boughs  down  with  slow  persistent  power; 
Nor  without  peril  can  the  branches  raise 

Their  burden;  now  they  stagger  'neath  the  weight 

Still  growing,  and  are  bent  above  the  ways; 
Soon  autumn  comes,  and  the  ripe  ruddy  freight 

Is  gathered:  the  glad  season  will  not  stay; 

Flowers,  fruits,  and  leaves  are  now  all  desolate. 
Pluck  the  rose,  therefore,  maiden,  while  'tis  May! 

I*hat  is  good.     It  is  the  best  kind  of  poetry  within 
Lorenzo's  grasp.     But  here  is  Poliziano's  dance-song: 

I  went  a-roaming,  maidens,  one  bright  day, 
In  a  green  garden  in  mid  month  of  May. 

Violets  and  lilies  grew  on  every  side 
Mid  the  green  grass,  and  young  flowers  wonderful, 

Golden  and  white  and  red  and  azure-eyed; 

Toward  which  I  stretched  my  hands,  eager  to  pull 
Plenty  to  make  my  fair  curls  beautiful, 

To  crown  my  rippling  curls  with  garlands  gay. 

I  went  a-roaming,  maidens,  one  bright  day, 
In  a  green  garden  in  mid  month  of  May. 

But  when  my  lap  was  full  of  flowers  I  spied 
Roses  at  last,  roses  of  every  hue; 

Therefore  I  ran  to  pluck  their  ruddy  pride, 
Because  their  perfume  was  so  sweet  and  true 
That  all  my  soul  went  forth  with  pleasure  new, 

With  yearning  and  desire  too  soft  to  say. 

I  went  a-roaming,  maidens,  one  bright  day, 
In  a  green  garden  in  mid  month  of  May. 

I  gazed  and  gazed.     Hard  task  it  were  to  tell 
How  lovely  were  the  roses  in  that  hour; 


CORINTO   AND    SELVE    D'    AMORR.  379 

One  was  but  peeping  from  her  verdant  shell. 
And  some  were  faded,  some  were  scarce  in  flower. 
Then  Love  said:  Go,  pluck  from  the  blooming  bower 

Those  that  thou  seest  ripe  upon  the  spray. 

I  went  a-roaming,  maidens,  one  bright  day, 
In  a  green  garden  in  mid  month  of  May. 

For  when  the  full  rose  quits  her  tender  sheath, 
When  she  is  sweetest  and  most  fair  to  see, 

Then  is  the  time  to  place  her  in  thy  wreath, 
Before  her  beauty  and  her  freshness  flee. 
Gather  ye  therefore  roses  with  great  glee, 

Sweet  girls,  or  ere  their  perfume  pass  away. 

I  went  a-roaming,  maidens,  one  bright  day, 
In  a  green  garden  in  mid  month  of  May. 

Both  in  this  Ballata  and  also  in  the  stanzas  on  the  Age 
of  Gold,  it  might  almost  seem  as  though  Poliziano  had 
rewritten  Lorenzo's  exercise  with  a  view  to  showing 
the  world  the  difference  between  true  poetry  and  what 
is  only  very  like  it. 

The  Selve  (f  Amore  and  the  Corinto  belong  to 
Lorenzo's  early  manner,  when  his  heart  was  yet  fresh 
and  statecraft  had  not  made  him  cynical.  The  latter 
is  a  musical  eclogue  in  terza  rima;  the  former  a  dis- 
cursive love-poem,  with  allegorical  episodes,  in  octave 
stanzas.  Up  to  the  date  of  the  Selve  the  ottava  rima 
had,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  only  used  for  semi-epical 
poems  and  short  love-songs.  Lorenzo  proved  his 
originality  by  suiting  it  to  a  style  of  composition 
which  aimed  at  brilliant  descriptions  in  the  manner  of 
Ovid.  He  also  handled  it  with  an  ease  and  brightness 
hitherto  unknown.  The  pageant  of  Love  and  Jealousy 
and  the  allegory  of  Hope  in  the  second  part  are  both 
such  poetry  as  only  needed  something  magical  from 


380  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

the  touch  of  Ariosto  to  make  them  perfect.1  As  it  is, 
Lorenzo's  studies  in  verse  produce  the  same  impres- 
sion as  Bronzino's  in  painting.  They  are  brilliant, 
but  hard,  cold,  calculated,  never  fused  by  the  final 
charm  of  poetry  or  music  into  a  delightful  vision 
What  is  lacking  is  less  technical  skill  or  invention  than 
feeling  in  the  artist,  the  glow  of  passion,  or  the  charm 
of  spiritual  harmony.  Here  is  a  picture  of  Hope's 
attendant  train: 

Following  this  luckless  dame,  where'er  she  goes, 
Flit  dreams  in  crowds,  with  auguries  and  lies, 
Chiromants,  arts  that  cozen  and  impose, 
Chances,  diviners,  and  false  prophecies, 
Spoken  or  writ  in  foolish  scroll  and  glose, 
Whose  forecast  brings  time  flown  before  our  eyes, 
Alchemy,  all  who  heaven  from  our  earth  measure, 
And  free  conjectures  made  at  will  and  pleasure. 

'Neath  the  dark  shadow  of  her  mighty  wings 
The  whole  deluded  world  at  last  must  cower: — 
O  blindness  that  involves  all  mortal  things, 
Frail  ignorance  that  treads  on  human  power ! — 
He  who  can  count  the  woes  her  empire  brings, 
Could  number  every  star,  each  fish,  each  flower, 
Tell  all  the  birds  that  cross  the  autumnal  seas, 
Or  leaves  that  flutter  from  the  naked  trees. 

His  Ambra  is  another  poem  in  the  same  style  as 
the  Selve.  It  records  Lorenzo's  love  for  that  Tuscan 
farm  which  Poliziano  afterwards  made  famous  in  the 
sonorous  hexameters  he  dedicated  to  the  memory  of 
Homer.2  Following  the  steps  of  Ovid,  Lorenzo 
feigns  that  a  shepherd  Lauro  loved  the  nymph  Ambra, 
whom  Umbrone,  the  river-god,  pursued  through  vale 

i  Poesie,  pp.  190-194,  200-204. 

9  See  the  peroration  to  Ambra,  in  the  Sylvasj  Poliziano,  Prose  Vol 
gari  e  Potsie  Latine,  etc.  (Firenze,  1867),  p.  365:  Et  nos  ergo  illi,  etc. 


RUSTIC  POEMS.  381 

and  meadow  to  the  shores  of  Arno.  There  he  would 
have  done  her  violence,  but  that  Diana  changed  her  to 
a  rock  in  her  sore  need : 

Ma  pur  che  fussi  gia  donna  ancor  crcdi; 
Le  membra  mostran,  come  suol  figura 
Bozzata  e  non  finita  in  pietra  dura. 

This  simile  is  characteristic  both  of  Lorenzo's  love  for 
familiar  illustration,  and  also  of  the  age  that  dawned 
on  Michelangelo's  genius.  In  the  same  meter,  but  in 
a  less  ambitious  style,  is  La  Caccia  col  Falcone.  This 
poem  is  the  simple  record  of  a  Tuscan  hawking-party, 
written  to  amuse  Lorenzo's  guests,  but  never  meant 
assuredly  to  be  discussed  by  critics  after  the  lapse  of 
four  centuries.  These  pastorals,  whether  trifling  like 
La  Caccia,  romantic  like  Corinto,  or  pictorial  like 
Ambra,  sink  into  insignificance  beside  La  Nencia  da 
Barberino — a  masterpiece  of  true  genius  and  humor, 
displaying  intimate  knowledge  of  rustic  manners,  and 
using  the  dialect  of  the  Tuscan  contadini.1  Like  the 
Polyphemus  of  Theocritus,  but  with  even  more  of  racy 
detail  and  homely  fun,  La  Nencia  versifies  the  love  - 
lament  of  a  hind,  Vallera,  who  describes  the  charms 
of  his  sweetheart  with  quaint  fancy,  wooing  her  in  a 
thousand  ways,  all  natural,  all  equally  in  keeping  with 
rural  simplicity.  It  can  scarcely  be  called  a  parody  of 
village  life  and  feeling,  although  we  cannot  fail  to  see 
that  the  town  is  laughing  at  the  country  all  through 
the  exuberant  stanzas,  so  rich  in  fancy,  so  incomparably 
vivid  in  description.  What  lifts  it  above  parody  is  the 
truth  of  the  picture  and  the  close  imitation  of  rustic 
popular  poetry2: 

i  Poesie,  p.  238.  2  Ibid.  p.  239. 


382  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Le  labbre  rosse  paion  di  corallo: 
Ed  havvi  drento  due  filar  di  denti 
Che  son  piu  bianchi  che  quei  di  cavallo: 
E  d'  ogni  lato  ella  n'  ha  piu  di  venti. 
Le  gote  bianche  paion  di  cristallo 
Senz*  altri  lisci  ower  scorticamenti: 
Ed  in  quel  mezzo  ell'  e  come  una  rosa. 
Nel  mondo  non  fu  mai  si  bella  cosa. 

Ben  si  potra  tenere  avventurato 
Che  sia  marito  di  si  bella  moglie; 
Ben  si  potra  tener  in  buon  di  nato 
Chi  ara  quel  fioraliso  senza  foglie; 
Ben  si  potra  tener  santo  e  beato, 
Che  si  contenti  tutte  le  sue  voglie 
D'  aver  la  Nencia  e  tenersela  in  braccio 
Morbida  e  bianca  che  pare  un  sugnaccio. 


These  lines,  chosen  at  random  from  the  poem,  might 
be  paralleled  from  Rispetti  that  are  sung  to-day  in 
Tuscany.  The  vividness  and  vigor  of  La  Nencia 
secured  for  it  immediate  popularity.  It  was  speedily 
imitated  by  Luigi  Pulci  in  the  Beca  da  Dicomano>  a 
village  poem  that,  aiming  at  cruder  realism  than 
Lorenzo's,  broke  the  style  and  lapsed  into  vulgarity. 
La  Nencia  long  continued  to  have  imitators ;  for  one 
of  the  principal  objects  of  educated  poets  in  the  Renais- 
sance was  to  echo  the  manner  of  popular  verse.  None, 
however,  succeeded  so  well  as  Lorenzo  in  touching  the 
facts  of  country  life  and  the  truth  of  country  feeling 
with  a  fine  irony  that  had  in  it  at  least  as  much  of 
sympathy  as  of  sarcasm. 

1 Beoni  is  a  plebeian  poem  of  a  different  and  more 
displeasing  type.  Written  in  terza  rima,  it  distinctly 
parodies  the  style  of  the  Divine  Comedy,  using  the 
same  phrases  to  indicate  action  and  to  mark  the  turns  of 
dialogue,  introducing  similes  in  the  manner  of  Dante; 


I   BEONI  AND    THE    LAUDS.  383 

burlesquing  Virgil  and  Beatrice  in  the  disgusting 
Bartolino  and  Nastagio.1  The  poem  might  be  called 
The  Paradise  of  Drunkards,  or  their  Hell ;  for  it  con- 
sists of  a  succession  of  scenes  in  which  intoxication  in 
all  stages  and  topers  of  every  caliber  are  introduced 
The  tone  is  coldly  satirical,  sardonically  comic.  The 
old  man  of  Tennyson's  "Vision  of  Sin"  might  have 
written  /  Beoni  after  a  merry  bout  with  the  wrinkled 
ostler.  When  Lorenzo  composed  it,  he  was  already 
corrupt  and  weary,  sated  with  the  world,  worn  with 
disease,  disillusioned  by  a  life  of  compromise,  hypo- 
crisy, diplomacy,  and  treason  to  the  State  he  ruled. 
Yet  the  humor  of  this  poem  has  nothing  truly  sinister 
or  tragic.  Its  brutality  is  redeemed  by  no  fierce 
Swiftian  rage.  If  some  of  the  descriptions  in  Lorenzo's 
earlier  work  remind  us  of  Dutch  flower  and  landscape- 
painters,  Breughel  or  Van  Huysum,  the  scenes  of  / 
Beoni  recall  the  realism  of  Dutch  tavern -pictures  and 
Kermessen.  It  has  the  same  humor,  gross  and  yet 
keen,  the  same  intellectual  enjoyment  of  sensuality,  the 
same  animalism  studied  by  an  acute  aesthetic  spirit.2 

To  turn  from  /  Beoni  to  Lorenzo's  Lauds,  written 
at  his  mother's  request,  and  to  the  sacred  play  of 
51  Giovanni  e  Paolo ',  acted  by  his  children,  is  to  make 
one  of  those  bewildering  transitions  which  are  so  com- 
mon in  Renaissance  Italy.  Without  rating  Lorenzo's 
sacred  poetry  very  high,  either  for  religious  fervor  or 
aesthetic  quality,  it  is  yet  surprising  that  the  author  of 
the  Beoni  and  the  Platonic  sage  of  Careggi  should  have 

1  Poesie,  p.  294. 

•  If  anything  had  to  be  quoted  from  I  Beoni,  I  should  select  the 
episode  of  Adovardo  and  his  humorous  discourse  on  thirst,  cap.  ii  #. 
p.  299.  For  a  loathsome  parody  of  Dante  see  cap.  v.  ib.  p.  315. 


384  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

caught  so  much  of  the  pietistic  tone.  We  know  that 
S.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  was  written  when  he  was  advanced 
in  years1;  and  the  latent  allusions  to  his  illness  and 
the  cares  of  state  which  weighed  upon  him,  give  it  an 
interest  it  would  not  otherwise  excite.  This  couplet, 

Spesso  chi  chiama  Costantin  felice 
Sta  meglio  assai  di  me  e  '1  ver  non  dice, 

seems  to  be  a  sigh  from  his  own  weariness.  Lorenzo 
may  not  improbably  have  envied  Constantine,  the 
puppet  of  his  fancy,  at  the  moment  of  abdication.  And 
yet  when  Savonarola  called  upon  him  ere  his  death  to 
deal  justly  with  Florence,  the  true  nature  of  the  man 
was  seen.  Had  he  liked  it  or  not,  he  could  not  then 
have  laid  down  the  load  of  care  and  crime  which  it  had 
been  the  business  of  his  whole  life  to  accumulate  by 
crooked  ways  in  the  enslavement  of  Florence  and  the 
perdition  of  his  soul's  peace.  The  Lauds,  which  may 
be  referred  to  an  earlier  period  of  Lorenzo's  life,  when 
his  mother  ruled  his  education,  and  the  pious  Bishop 
of  Arezzo  watched  his  exemplary  behavior  in  church 
with  admiration,  have  here  and  there  in  them  a  touch 
of  profound  feeling2;  nor  are  they  in  all  respects 
inferior  to  the  average  of  those  included  in  the  Floren- 
tine collection  of  1863.  The  men  of  the  Renaissance 
were  so  constituted  that  to  turn  from  vice,  and  cruelty, 
and  crime,  from  the  deliberate  corruption  and  enslave- 
ment of  a  people  by  licentious  pleasures  and  the  perse- 
cution of  an  enemy  in  secret,  with  a  fervid  and  im- 

»  The  date  is  1489. 

«  Especially  "  O  Dio,  o  sommo  bene,"  and  "  Poi  ch*  io  gustai,  Gesfc; ' 
ib.  pp.  444,  447.     Likewise  "  Vieni  a  me; "  ib.  p.  449. 


LORENZO'S   POPULAR   LYRICS.  385 

passioned  movement  of  the  soul  to  God,  was  nowise 
impossible.  Their  temper  admitted  of  this  anomaly, 
as  we  may  plainly  see  in  Cellini's  Autobiography. 
Therefore,  though  it  is  probable  that  Lorenzo  culti- 
vated the  Laud  chiefly  as  a  form  of  art,  we  are  not 
justified  in  assuming  that  the  passages  in  which  we 
seem  to  detect  a  note  of  ardent  piety,  are  insincere. 
The  versatility  of  Lorenzo's  talent  showed  itself  to 
greater  advantage  when  he  quitted  the  uncongenial 
ground  of  sacred  literature  and  gave  a  free  rein  to  his 
fancy  in  the  composition  of  Ballate  and  Carnival 
songs.  This  species  of  poetry  offered  full  scope  to  a 
temperament  excessive  in  all  pleasures  of  the  senses.1 
It  also  enabled  him  to  indulge  a  deeply-rooted  sym- 
pathy with  the  common  folk.  Nor  must  it  be  sup- 
posed that  Lorenzo  was  following  a  merely  artistic  im- 
pulse. This  strange  man,  in  whose  complex  nature 
opponent  qualities  were  harmonized  and  intertwined, 
made  his  very  sensuality  subserve  his  statecraft.  The 
Medici  had  based  their  power  upon  the  favor  of 
the  proletariate.  Since  the  days  of  the  Ciompi  riot 
they  had  pursued  one  line  of  self-aggrandizement  by 
siding  with  the  plebeians  in  their  quarrels  with  the 
oligarchs.  The  serious  purpose  which  underlay  Lo- 
renzo's cultivation  of  popular  poetry,  was  to  amuse  the 

1  Guicciardini,  in  his  Storia  Fiorentina  (Op.  Ined.  vol.  iii.  88),  writes 
of  Lorenzo:  "  Fu  libidinoso,  e  tutto  venereo  e  constante  negli  amori  suoi, 
che  duravano  parecchi  anni;  la  quale  cosa,  a  giudicio  di  molti,  gli  inde- 
boli  tanto  il  corpo,  che  lo  fece  morire,  si  pub  dire,  giovane."  Then,  after 
describing  his  night-adventures  outside  Florence,  he  proceeds:  "Cosa 
pazza  a  considerare  che  uno  di  tanta  grandezza,  riputazione  e  prudenza, 
di  eta  di  anni  quaranta,  fussi  si  preso  di  una  dama  non  bella  e  gia  piena 
di  anni,  che  si  conducessi  a  fare  cose,  che  sarebbono  state  disonestc  a 
ogni  fanciullo." 


j86  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

crowd  with  pageantry  and  music,  to  distract  theii 
attention  from  State  concerns  and  to  blunt  their  poli- 
tical interest,  to  flatter  them  by  descending  to  their 
level  and  mixing  freely  with  them  in  their  sports,  and 
to  acquire  a  popularity  which  should  secure  him  from 
the  aristocratic  jealousies  of  the  Acciaioli,  the  Fresco- 
baldi,  the  Salviati,  Soderini,  and  other  ancestral  foemen 
of  his  house.  The  frontispiece  to  an  old  edition  of 
Florentine  carnival  songs  shows  him  surrounded  with 
maskers  in  quaint  dresses,  leading  the  revel  beneath 
the  walls  of  the  Palazzo,  while  women  gaze  upon  them 
from  the  windows.1  That  we  are  justified  in  attribu- 
ting a  policy  of  calculated  enervation  to  Lorenzo  is 
proved  by  the  verdict  of  Machiavelli  and  Guicciardini, 
both  of  whom  connect  his  successful  despotism  with 
the  pageants  he  provided  for  the  populace,2  and  also 
by  this  passage  in  Savonarola's  treatise  on  the  Govern- 
ment of  Florence:  "The  tyrant,  especially  in  times  of 
peace  and  plenty,  is  wont  to  occupy  the  people  with 
shows  and  festivals,  in  order  that  they  may  think  of 
their  own  pastimes  and  not  of  his  designs,  and,  grow- 
ing unused  to  the  conduct  of  the  commonwealth,  may 
leave  the  reins  of  government  in  his  hands." 3  At  the 
'same  time  he  would  err  who  should  suppose  that 
'Lorenzo's  enjoyment  of  these  pleasures,  which  he  found 

1  Canzone  per  andart  in  maschera,facte  da  piii  persone.  Noplace 
or  date  or  printer's  name;  but  probably  issued  in  the  lifetime  of  Lorenzo 
from  Mongiani's  press.  There  is  a  similar  woodcut  on  the  title-page  ot 
the  Canzone  a  Ballo,  Firenze,  1568.  It  represents  the  angle  of  the  Medi- 
cean  Palace  in  the  Via  Larga,  girls  dancing  in  a  ring  upon  the  street, 
one  with  a  wreath  and  thyrsus  kneeling,  another  presenting  Lorenzo 
with  a  book. 

1  1st.  Fior.  viii.;  Star.  Fior.  ix. 

»  Trattato  circa  il  Reggimento  e  Governo  della,  Cittd  di  Firc*xt 
(Florence,  1847),  H.  2. 


CANZONI  A    BALLO.  387 

in  vogue  among  the  people,  was  not  genuine.  He 
represented  the  worst  as  well  as  the  best  spirit  of  his 
age ;  and  if  he  knew  how  to  enslave  Florence,  it  was 
because  his  own  temperament  shared  the  instincts  of 
the  crowd,  while  his  genius  enabled  him  to  clothe 
obscenity  with  beauty. 

We  know  that  it  was  an  ancient  Florentine  custom 
for  young  men  and  girls  to  meet  upon  the  squares  and 
dance,  while  a  boy  sang  with  treble  voice  to  lute  or 
viol,  or  a  company  of  minstrels  chanted  part-songs. 
The  dancers  joined  in  the  refrain,  vaunting  the  plea 
sures  of  the  May  and  the  delights  of  love  in  rhythms 
suited  to  the  Carola.  Taking  this  form  of  poetry  from 
the  people,  Lorenzo  gave  it  the  dignity  of  art.  Some- 
times he  told  the  tale  of  an  unhappy  lover,  or  pre- 
tended to  be  pleading  with  a  coy  mistress,  or  broke 
forth  into  the  exultation  of  a  passion  crowned  with 
success.  Again,  he  urged  both  boys  and  girls  to  stay 
the  flight  of  time  nor  suffer  the  rose-buds  of  their 
youth  to  fade  unplucked.  In  more  wanton  moods,  he 
satirized  the  very  love  he  praised,  or,  casting  off  the 
mask  of  decency,  ran  riot  in  base  bestiality.  These 
Canzoni  a  Ballo,  though  they  lack  the  supreme  beauty 
of  Poliziano's  style,  are  stylistically  graceful.  Their 
tone  never  rises  above  sensuality.  Not  only  has  the 
gravity  of  Dante's  passion  passed  away  from  Florence, 
but  Boccaccio's  sensuous  ideality  is  gone,  and  the 
naivete  of  popular  erotic  poetry  is  clouded  with  gross 
innuendoes.  We  find  in  them  the  aesthetic  immorality, 
the  brilliant  materialism  of  the  Renaissance,  conveyed 
with  careless  self-abandonment  to  carnal  impulse. 

The   name    of   Lorenzo   de'   Medici   is   still   more 


388  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

closely  connected  with  the  Canti  Carnascialeschi  or 
Carnival  Songs,  of  which  he  is  said  to  have  been  the 
first  author,  than  with  the  Ballate,  which  he  only  used 
as  they  were  handed  to  him.  In  Carnival  time  it 
was  the  custom  of  the  Florentines  to  walk  the  streets, 
masked  and  singing  satiric  ballads.  Lorenzo  saw  that 
here  was  an  opportunity  for  delighting  the  people, 
with  the  magnificence  of  pageantry.  He  caused  the 
Triumphs  in  which  he  took  a  part  to  be  carefully  pre- 
pared by  the  best  artists,  the  dresses  of  the  maskers 
to  be  accurately  studied,  and  their  chariots  to  be 
adorned  with  illustrative  paintings.  Then  he  wrote 
songs  appropriate  to  the  characters  represented  on 
the  cars.  Singing  and  dancing  and  displaying  their 
costumes,  the  band  paraded  Florence.  II  Lasca  in 
his  introduction  to  the  Triumphs  and  Carnival  Songs 
dedicated  to  Don  Francesco  de'  Medici  gives  the 
history  of  their  invention * :  "  This  festival  was  in- 
vented by  the  Magnificent  Lorenzo  de'  Medici.  Be- 
fore his  time,  when  the  cars  bore  mythological  or 
allegorical  masks,  they  were  called  Trionfi ;  but 
when  they  carried  representatives  of  arts  and  trades, 
they  kept  the  simpler  name  of  Carri"  The  lyrics 
written  for  the  Triumphs  were  stately,  in  the  style  of 
antique  odes;  those  intended  to  be  sung  upon  the 
Carri,  employed  plebeian  turns  of  phrase  and  dealt 
in  almost  undisguised  obscenity.  It  was  their  wont, 
says  II  Lasca,  "  to  go  forth  after  dinner,  and  often  they 
lasted  till  three  or  four  hours  into  the  night,  with  a 
multitude  of  masked  men  on  horseback  following,  richly 

'  TUtti  i  Trionfi,  Carri,  etc.,  Fircnzc,  1559.    See  also  the  edition 
dated  Cosmopoli.  1750. 


CARNIVAL    SONGS.  389 

dressed,  exceeding  sometimes  three  hundred  in  num- 
ber, and  as  many  men  on  foot  with  lighted  torches. 
Thus  they  traversed  the  city,  singing  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  music  arranged  for  four,  eight,  twelve,  or 
even  fifteen  voices,  supported  by  various  instruments." 
Lorenzo's  fancy  took  the  Florentine  mind.  From 
his  days  onward  these  shows  were  repeated  every  year, 
the  best  artists  and  poets  contributing  their  genius  to 
make  them  splendid.  In  the  collection  of  songs  written 
for  the  Carnival,  we  find  Masks  of  Scholars,  Arti- 
sans, Frog-catchers,  Furies,  Tinkers,  Women  selling 
grapes,  Old  men  and  Young  wives,  Jewelers,  German 
Lansknechts,  Gypsies,  Wool-carders,  Penitents,  Devils, 
Jews,  Hypocrites,  Young  men  who  have  lost  their 
fathers,  Wiseacres,  Damned  Souls,  Tortoiseshell  Cats, 
Perfumers,  Masons,  Mountebanks,  Mirror -makers, 
Confectioners,  Prudent  persons,  Lawyers,  Nymphs  in 
love,  Nuns  escaped  from  convent — not  to  mention  the 
Four  Ages  of  Man,  the  Winds,  the  Elements,  Peace, 
Calumny,  Death,  Madness,  and  a  hundred  abstractions 
of  that  kind.  The  tone  of  these  songs  is  uniformly 
and  deliberately  immoral.  One  might  fancy  them 
composed  for  some  old  phallic  festival.  Their  wit  is 
keen  and  lively,  presenting  to  the  fancy  of  the  student 
all  the  humors  of  a*  brilliant  bygone  age.  A  strange 
and  splendid  spectacle  it  must  have  been,  when  Flor- 
ence, the  city  of  art  and  philosophy,  ran  wild  in 
Dionysiac  revels  proclaiming  the  luxury  and  license 
of  the  senses!  Beautiful  maidens,  young  men  in  rich 
clothes  on  prancing  steeds,  showers  of  lilies  and  violets, 
triumphal  arches  of  spring  flowers  and  ribbons,  hail- 
storms of  comfits,  torches  flaring  to  the  sallow  evening 


390 


RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 


sky — we  can  see  the  whole  procession  as  it  winds  across 
the  Ponte  Vecchio,  emerges  into  the  great  square,  and 
slowly  gains  the  open  space  beneath  the  dome  of 
Brunelleschi  and  the  tower  of  Giotto.  The  air  rings 
with  music  as  they  come,  bass  and  tenor  and  shrill 
treble  mingling  with  the  sound  of  lute  and  cymbal. 
The  people  hush  their  cheers  to  listen.  It  is  Lorenzo's 
Triumph  of  Bacchus,  and  here  are  the  words  they 
sing: 

Fair  is  youth  and  void  of  sorrow; 

But  it  hourly  flies  away. — 

Youths  and  maids,  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-morrow. 

This  is  Bacchus  and  the  bright 

Ariadne,  lovers  true! 
They,  in  flying  time's  despite, 

Each  with  each  find  pleasure  new; 
These  their  Nymphs,  and  all  their  crew 

Keep  perpetual  holiday. — 

Youths  and  maids,  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-morrow. 

These  blithe  Satyrs,  wanton-eyed, 

Of  the  Nymphs  are  paramours: 
Through  the  caves  and  forests  wide 

They  have  snared  them  mid  the  flowers. 
Warmed  with  Bacchus,  in  his  bowers, 

Now  they  dance  and  leap  away. — 

Youths  and  maids  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-morrow. 

These  fair  Nymphs,  they  are  not  loth 

To  entice  their  lovers'  wiles. 
None  but  thankless  folk  and  rough 

Can  resist  when  Love  beguiles. 
Now  enlaced  with  wreathed  smiles, 

All  together  dance  and  play. — 

Youths  and  maids,  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-mornw. 


TRIUMPH   OF  BACCHUS.  391 

See  this  load  behind  them  plodding 

On  the  ass,  Silenus  he, 
Old  and  drunken,  merry,  nodding, 

Full  of  years  and  jollity; 
Though  he  goes  so  swayingly, 

Yet  he  laughs  and  quaffs  alway. — 

Youths  and  maids,  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-morrow. 

Midas  treads  a  wearier  measure: 

All  he  touches  turns  to  gold: 
If  there  be  no  taste  of  pleasure, 

What's  the  use  of  wealth  untold  ? 
What's  the  joy  his  fingers  hold, 

When  he's  forced  to  thirst  for  aye  ? — 

Youths  and  maids,  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-morrow. 

Listen  well  to  what  we're  saying; 

Of  to-morrow  have  no  care ! 
Young  and  old  together  playing, 

Boys  and  girls,  be  blithe  as  air ! 
Every  sorry  thought  forswear ! 

Keep 'perpetual  holiday. — 

Youths  and  maids,  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-morrow. 

Ladies  and  gay  lovers  young ! 

Long  live  Bacchus,  live  Desire  1 
Dance  and  play,  let  songs  be  sung; 

Let  sweet  Love  your  bosoms  fire; 

In  the  future  come  what  may ! — 

Youths  and  maids,  enjoy  to-day; 
Naught  ye  know  about  to-morrow. 

On  rolls  the  car,  and  the  crowd  closes  round  it,  rending 
the  old  walls  with  shattering  hurrahs.  Then  a  corner 
of  the  street  is  turned;  while  soaring  still  above  the 
hubbub  of  the  town  we  hear  at  intervals  that  musical  re- 
frain. Gradually  it  dies  away  in  the  distance,  and  fainter 
and  more  faintly  still  the  treble  floats  to  us  in  broken 
waves  of  sound — the  echo  of  a  lyric  heard  in  dreams. 
Such  were  the  songs  that  reached  Savonarola's  ears, 


392  RENAISSANCE   JN  ITALY. 

writing  or  meditating  in  his  cloister  at  S.  Marco.  Such 
were  the  sights  that  moved  his  indignation  as  he  trod  the 
streets  of  Florence.  Then  he  bethought  him  of  his 
famous  parody  of  the  Carnival,  the  bonfire  of  Vanities, 
and  the  hymn  in  praise  of  divine  madness  sung  by 
children  dressed  in  white  like  angels.1  Yet  Florence, 

1  In  this  place  should  be  noticed  a  sinister  Carnival  Song,  by  an  un- 
known author,  which  belongs,  I  think,  to  the  period  of  Savonarola's  de- 
mocracy. It  is  called  Trionfo  del  Vaglio,  or  "  Triumph  of  the  Sieve ' 
(Cant.  Cam.  p.  33): 

To  the  Sieve,  to  the  Sieve,  to  the  Sieve, 

Ho,  all  ye  folk,  descend  1 

With  groans  your  bosoms  rend  I 

And  find  in  this  our  Sieve 

Wrath,  anguish,  travail,  doom  for  all  who  lire  1 
To  winnow,  sift  and  purge,  full  well  we  know, 

And  grind  your  souls  like  corn: 

Ye  who  our  puissance  scorn, 

Come  ye  to  trial,  ho ! 

For  we  will  prove  and  show 

How  fares  the  man  who  enters  in  our  Sieve. 
Send  us  no  groats  nor  scrannel  seed  nor  rye, 

But  good  fat  ears  of  grain, 

Which  shall  endure  our  strain. 

And  be  of  sturdy  stuff. 

Torment  full  stern  and  rough 

Abides  for  him  who  resteth  in  our  Sieve. 
Who  comes  into  this  Sieve,  who  issues  thence, 

Hath  tears  and  sighs,  and  mourns: 

But  the  Sieve  ever  turns, 

And  gathers  vehemence. 

Ye  who  feel  sin's  offence, 

Shun  ye  the  rage,  the  peril  of  our  Sieve. 
A  thousand  times  the  day,  our  Sieve  is  crowned; 

A  thousand  times  'tis  drained: 

Let  the  Sieve  once  be  strained, 

And,  grain  by  grain,  around 

Ye  shall  behold  the  ground 

Covered  with  folk,  cast  from  the  boltering  Sieve 
Yc  who  are  not  well-grained  and  strong  to  bear, 

Abide  ye  not  this  fate  ! 

Penitence  comes  too  late ! 

Seek  ye  some  milder  doom  J 

Nay,  better  were  the  tomb 

Than  to  endure  the  torment  of  our  Steve ! 


TRIUMPH    OF  DEATH.  393 

warned  in  vain  by  the  friar,  took  no  thought  for  the 
morrow;  and  the  morrow  came  to  all  Italy  with  war, 
invasion,  pestilence,  innumerable  woes.  In  the  last 
year  of  Pier  Soderini's  Gonfalonierato  (i5i2)  it  seemed 
as  though  the  Italians  had  been  quickened  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  their  impending  ruin.  The  siege  of 
Brescia,  the  battle  of  Ravenna,  the  League  of  Cam- 
bray,  the  massacres  of  Prato,  the  sack  of  Rome,  the 
fall  of  Florence,  were  all  imminent.  A  fascination  of 
intolerable  fear  thrilled  the  people  in  the  midst  of 
their  heedlessness,  and  this  fear  found  voice  and  form 
in  a  strange  Carnival  pageant  described  by  Vasari 1 : 
"  The  triumphal  car  was  covered  with  black  cloth,  and 
was  of  vast  size;  it  had  skeletons  and  white  crosses 
painted  upon  its  surface,  and  was  drawn  by  buffaloes, 
all  of  which  were  totally  black:  within  the  car  stood 
the  colossal  figure  of  Death,  bearing  the  scythe  in  his 
hand;  while  round  him  were  covered  tombs,  which 
opened  at  all  the  places  where  the  procession  halted, 
while  those  who  formed  it,  chanted  lugubrious  songs, 
when  certain  figures  stole  forth,  clothed  in  black  cloth, 
on  whose  vestments  the  bones  of  a  skeleton  were  de- 
picted in  white;  the  arms,  breast,  ribs,  and  legs,  namely, 
all  which  gleamed  horribly  forth  on  the  black  beneath. 
At  a  certain  distance  appeared  figures  bearing  torches, 
and  wearing  masks  presenting  the  face  of  a  death's 
head  both  before  and  behind;  these  heads  of  death  as 
well  as  the  skeleton  necks  beneath  them,  also  ex- 
hibited to  view,  were  not  only  painted  with  the  utmost 
fidelity  to  nature,  but  had  besides  a  frightful  expression 

1  Life  of  I'iero  di  Cosimo. 


394  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

which  was  horrible  to  behold.  At  the  sound  of  a 
wailing  summons,  sent  forth  with  a  hollow  moan  from 
trumpets  of  muffled  yet  inexorable  clangor,  the  figures 
of  the  dead  raised  themselves  half  out  of  their  tombs, 
and  seating  their  skeleton  forms  thereon,  they  sang 
the  following  words,  now  so  much  extolled  and  ad- 
mired, to  music  of  the  most  plaintive  and  melancholy 
character.  Before  and  after  the  car  rode  a  train  of 
the  dead  on  horses,  carefully  selected  from  the  most 
wretched  and  meager  animals  that  could  be  found: 
the  caparisons  of  those  worn,  half- dying  beasts  were 
black,  covered  with  white  crosses;  each  was  conducted 
by  four  attendants,  clothed  in  the  vestments  of  the 
grave;  these  last  -  mentioned  figures,  bearing  black 
torches  and  a  large  black  standard,  covered  with 
crosses,  bones,  and  death's  heads.  While  this  train 
proceeded  on  its  way,  each  sang,  with  a  trembling 
voice,  and  all  in  dismal  unison,  that  psalm  of  David 
called  the  Miserere.  The  novelty  and  the  terrible 
character  of  this  singular  spectacle,  filled  the  whole 
city,  as  I  have  before  said,  with  a  mingled  sensation 
of  terror  and  admiration;  and  although  at  the  first 
sight  it  did  not  seem  well  calculated  for  a  Carnival 
show,  yet  being  new,  and  within  the  reach  of  every 
man's  comprehension,  it  obtained  the  highest  encomium 
for  Piero  as  the  author  and  contriver  of  the  whole, 
and  was  the  cause  as  well  as  commencement  of 
numerous  representations,  so  ingenious  and  effective 
that  by  these  things  Florence  acquired  a  reputation 
for  the  conduct  of  such  subjects  and  the  arrangement 
of  similar  spectacles  such  as  was  never  equaled  by 
any  other  city."- 


CHORUS   OF  PENITENCE.  395 

Of  this  Carnival  song,  composed  by  Antonio  Ala- 
manni,  I  here  give  an  English  version. 


Sorrow,  tears,  and  penitence 
Are  our  doom  of  pain  for  aye; 
This  dead  concourse  riding  by 
Hath  no  cry  but  Penitence. 

Even  as  you  are,  once  were  we: 
You  shall  be  as  now  we  are: 
We  are  dead  men,  as  you  see: 
We  shall  see  you  dead  men,  where 
Naught  avails  to  take  great  care 
After  sins  of  penitence. 

We  too  in  the  Carnival 
Sang  our  love-song  through  the  tovm; 
Thus  from  sin  to  sin  we  all 
Headlong,  heedless,  tumbled  down; 
Now  we  cry,  the  world  around. 
Penitence,  oh  penitence! 

Senseless,  blind,  and  stubborn  fools! 
Time  steals  all  things  as  he  rides: 
Honors,  glories,  states,  and  schools, 
Pass  away,  and  naught  abides; 
Till  the  tomb  our  carcass  hides, 
And  compels  grim  penitence. 

This  sharp  scythe  you  see  us  bear, 
Brings  the  world  at  length  to  woe; 
But  from  life  to  life  we  fare; 
And  that  life  is  joy  or  woe; 
All  heaven's  bliss  on  him  doth  flow. 
Who  on  earth  does  penitence. 

Living  here,  we  all  must  die; 
Dying,  every  soul  shall  live, 
For  the  King  of  kings  on  high 
This  fixed  ordinance  doth  give: 
Lo!  you  all  are  fugitive 
Penitence,  cry  penitence! 


396  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Torment  great  and  grievous  dole 
Hath  the  thankless  heart  mid  you: 
But  the  man  of  piteous  soul 
Finds  much  honor  in  our  crew; 
Love  for  loving  is  the  due 
That  prevents  this  penitence. 

These  words  sounded  in  the  ears  of  the  people,  already 
terrified  by  the  unforgotten  voice  of  Savonarola,  like  a 
trump  of  doom.  The  pageant  was,  indeed,  an  acted 
allegory  of  the  death  of  Italy,  the  repentance  after 
judgment  of  a  nation  fallen  in  its  sins.  Yet  a  few 
months  passed,  and  the  same  streets  echoed  with  the 
music  of  yet  another  show,  which  has  also  been  de- 
scribed by  Vasari.1  If  the  Car  of  Death  expressed 
the  uneasy  dread  that  fell  on  the  Italians  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  century,  the  shows  of  1 5 1 3  allegorized  their 
mad  confidence  in  the  fortune  of  the  age,  which  was 
still  more  deeply  felt  and  widely  shared.  Giovanni 
de'  Medici  had  just  been  elevated  to  the  Papal  Chair, 
and  was  paying  a  holiday  visit  to  his  native  city. 
Giuliano  de'  Medici,  his  brother,  the  Duke  of 
Nemours,  was  also  resident  in  Florence,  where  he 
had  formed  a  club  of  noble  youths  called  the  Diamond. 
Lorenzo,  Duke  of  Urbino,  the  titular  chief  of  the 
house,  presided  over  a  rival  Company  named  II 
Broncone — with  a  withered  laurel-branch,  whence 
leaves  were  sprouting,  for  its  emblem.  The  Diamond 
signified  the  constancy  of  Casa  Medici;  the  withered 
branch  their  power  of  self- recovery.  These  two  men. 
Giuliano  and  Lorenzo,  are  the  same  who  now  confront 
each  other  upon  their  pedestals  in  Michelangelo's 
Sacristy  of  S.  Lorenzo.  Both  were  doomed  to  an 

•  i  Life  of  Pontormo. 


PAGEANT   OF    THE    GOLDEN  AGE.  397 

untimely  death;  but  in  the  year  1613,  when  Leo's 
election  shed  new  luster  on  their  house,  they  were  still 
in  the  heyday  of  prosperity  and  hope.  Giuliano 
resolved  that  the  Diamond  should  make  a  goodly 
show  Therefore  he  intrusted  the  invention  and  the 
poems  to  Andrea  Dazzi,  who  then  held  Poliziano's 
chair  of  Greek  and  Latin  literature.  Dazzi  devised 
three  Cars  after  the  fashion  of  a  Roman  triumph.  For 
the  construction  of  each  chariot  an  excellent  architect 
was  chosen;  for  their  decoration  the  painter  Pontormo 
was  appointed.  In  the  first  rode  beautiful  boys;  in 
the  second,  powerful  men;  in  the  third,  reverend 
grandsires.  Lorenzo,  in  competition  with  his  uncle, 
determined  that  the  Laurel  branch  should  outrival  the 
Diamond.  He  applied  to  Jacopo  Nardi,  the  historian 
of  Florence  and  translator  of  Livy.  Nardi  composed 
a  procession  of  seven  chariots  to  symbolize  the  Golden 
Age,  and  wrote  appropriate  poems  for  each,  which  are 
still  extant.  In  the  first  car  rode  Saturn  and  Janus, 
attended  by  six  shepherds  of  goodly  form,  naked,  on 
horses  without  harness.  In  the  second  sat  Numa 
Pompilius,  surrounded  by  priests  in  antique  raiment. 
The  third  carried  Titus  Manlius,  whose  consulship 
beheld  the  close  of  the  first  Punic  war.  In  the  fifth 
Augustus  sat  enthroned,  accompanied  by  twelve 
laureled  poets.  The  horses  that  drew  him,  were 
winged.  The  sixth  carried  Trajan,  the  just  emperor, 
with  doctors  of  the  law  on  either  side.  All  these 
chariots  were  adorned  with  emblems  painted  by  Pon- 
tormo. The  seventh  car  held  a  globe  to  represent  the 
world.  Upon  it  lay  a  dead  man  in  a  suit  of  rusty  iron 
armor,  from  the  cloven  plates  of  which  emerged  a 


398  RENAISSANCE    IN  1TALV. 

living  child,  naked  and  gilt  with  glistering  leaf  of  gold 
This  signified  the  passing  of  the  Iron,  and  the  opening 
of  the  Golden  Age — the  succession  of  the  Renaissance 
to  feudalism — the  fortunes  of  Italy  reviving  after  her 
disasters  in  the  sunlight  of  the  smiles  of  Leo.  Magnus 
scedorum  nascitur  ordo!  "The  world's  great  age 
begins  anew;  the  golden  years  return!"  Thus  the 
artists,  scholars,  and  poets  of  Florence  symbolized  in  a 
Carnival  show  the  advent  of  the  Renaissance.  The 
boy  who  represented  the  Golden  Age,  died  of  the 
sufferings  he  endured  beneath  his  gilding;  and  his 
father,  who  was  a  baker,  received  ten  scudi  of  in- 
demnity. A  fanciful  historian  might  read  in  this  little 
incident  the  irony  of  fate,  warning  the  Italians  that  the 
age  they  welcomed  would  perish  for  them  in  its  bloom. 
In  the  year  1613  Luther  was  already  thirty  years  of 
age,  and  Charles  V.  in  the  Low  Countries  was  a  boy 
of  thirteen,  accumulating  knowledge  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  future  Adrian  VI.  Whatever  destiny  of 
gold  the  Renaissance,  might  through  Italy  be  offering 
to  Europe,  it  was  on  the  point  of  pouring  blood  and 
fastening  heavier  chains  on  every  city  of  the  sacred 
land. 

In  my  desire  to  bring  together  these  three  repre- 
sentative festivals — Lorenzo's  Triumph  of  Bacchus, 
Alamanni's  Car  of  Death,  and  Pontormo's  Pageant  of 
the  Golden  Age — marking  three  moments  in  the 
Florentine  Renaissance,  and  three  diverse  moods  of 
feeling  in  the  people — I  have  transgressed  the  chrono- 
logical limits  of  this  chapter.  I  must  now  return  to  the 
year  1464,  when  a  boy  of  ten  years  old,  destined  to 
revive  the  glories  of  Italian  literature  with  far  greater 


ANGELO   POLIZIANO.  399 

luster  than  Lorenzo,  came  from  Montepulciano  to 
Florence,  and  soon  won  the  notice  of  the  Medicean 
princes.  Angelo  Ambrogini,  surnamed  Poliziano  from 
his  home  above  the  Chiana,  has  already  occupied  a 
prominent  place  in  this  work.1  It  is  not,  therefore, 
needful  to  retrace  the  history  of  his  uneventful  life,  or 
again  to  fix  his  proper  rank  among  the  scholars  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  He  was  the  greatest  student,  and 
the  greatest  poet  in  Greek  and  Latin,  that  Italy  has 
produced.  In  the  history  of  European  scholarship,  he 
stands  midway  between  Petrarch  and  Erasmus,  taking 
the  post  of  honor  at  the  moment  when  erudition  had 
acquired  ease  and  elegance,  but  had  not  yet  passed  on 
into  the  final  stage  of  scientific  criticism.  What  con- 
cerns us  here,  is  Poliziano's  achievement  as  an  Italian 
poet.  In  the  history  of  the  vulgar  literature  he  fills  a 
place  midway  between  Petrarch  and  Ariosto,  corre- 
sponding to  the  station  of  distinction  I  have  assigned 
to  him  in  humanistic  culture.  Of  few  men  can  it  be 
said  that  they  have  held  the  same  high  rank  in  poetry 
and  learning;  and  had  the  moral  fiber  of  Poliziano, 
his  intellectual  tension  and  his  spiritual  aim,  been  at 
all  commensurate  with  his  twofold  ability,  the  Italians 
might  have  shown  in  him  a  fourth  singer  equal  in  mag- 
nitude to  their  greatest.  As  it  was,  the  excellence  of 
his  work  was  marred  by  the  defect  of  his  temperament, 
and  has  far  less  value  for  the  general  reader  than  for 
the  student  of  versification. 

Lorenzo  de'  Medici  could  boast  of  having  restored 
the  mother  tongue  to  a  place  of  honor  among  the 
learned.  But  he  was  far  from  being  the  complete 

i  Revival  of  Learning,  pp.  345-357.  452-465. 


400  f  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

artist  that  the  age  required.  "  That  exquisite  flower 
of  sentiment  we  call  good  taste,  that  harmony  of 
intellect  we  call  judgment,  lies  not  within  the  grasp  of 
power  or  riches."1  A  man  was  needed  who  should 
combine  creative  genius  with  refined  tact  in  the  use  of 
language;  who  should  be  competent  to  carry  the  tradi- 
tion of  Italian  poetry  beyond  the  point  where  Boccaccio 
dropped  it,  while  giving  to  his  work  the  polish  and  the 
splendor  of  a  classic  masterpiece.  It  was  further  nec- 
essary that  this  new  dictator  of  the  literary  common- 
wealth should  have  left  the  Middle  Age  so  far  behind 
as  not  to  be  aware  of  its  stern  spirit.  He  must  have 
acquired  the  erudition  of  his  eminently  learned  century 
— a  century  in  which  knowledge  was  the  pearl  of  great 
price;  not  the  knowledge  of  righteousness;  not  the 
knowledge  of  nature  and  her  laws ;  but  the  knowledge 
of  the  life  that  throbbed  in  ancient  peoples,  the  life  that 
might,  it  seemed,  yet  make  the  old  world  young  again. 
Moreover,  he  must  be  strong  enough  to  carry  this  eru- 
dition without  bending  beneath  its  weight;  dexterous 
enough  to  use  it  without  pedantry ;  exuberant  enough 
in  natural  resources  to  reduce  his  stores  of  learning,  his 
wealth  of  fancy,  his  thronging  emotions,  to  one  ruling 
harmony — fusing  all  reminiscences  in  one  style  of  pure 
and  copious  Italian.  He  must  be  gifted  with  that 
reverent  sense  of  beauty,  which  was  the  sole  surviving 
greatness  of  his  century,  animating  the  imagination  of 
its  artists,  and  justifying  the  proud  boast  of  its  students. 
This  man  was  found  in  Angelo  Poliziano.  He,  and 
only  he,  was  destined,  by  combining  the  finish  of  the 

1  Carducci,  Preface  to  his  edition  of  Le  Stanze,  L'Orfeo  e  Le  Rim 
di  Mess er  Angelo  Ambrogini  Poliziano  (Firenze,  1863),  p.  xxiii. 


POLIZIANO'S    QUALIFICATIONS.  401 

classics  with  the  freshness  of  a  language  still  in  use,  to 
inaugurate  the  golden  age  of  form.  Faustus,  the 
genius  of  the  middle  ages,  had  wedded  Helen,  the 
vision  of  the  ancient  world.  Their  son,  Euphorion, 
the  inheritor  of  all  their  gifts,  we  hail  in  Poliziano. 

When  Poliziano  composed  Le  Stanze  he  was  nearly 
twenty-four  years  of  age.  *  He  had  steeped  himself  in 
the  classic  literatures.  Endowed  with  a  marvelous 
memory,  he  possessed  their  spirit  and  their  substance. 
Not  less  familiar  with  Tuscan  poetry  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  he  commanded  the  stores  of  Dante's,  Pet- 
rarch's and  Boccaccio's  diction.  Long  practice  in 
Greek  and  Latin  composition  had  given  him  mastery 
over  the  metrical  systems  of  the  ancient  languages.2 
The  daily  habit  of  inditing  songs  for  music  to  please 
the  ladies  of  the  Medicean  household,  had  accustomed 
him  to  the  use  of  fluent  Italian.  The  translation  of 
the  Iliad,  performed  in  part  before  he  was  eighteen, 
had  made  him  a  faithful  imitator,  while  it  added  dignity 
and  fullness  to  his  style. 3  Besides  these  qualifications 
for  his  future  task  of  raising  Italian  to  an  equality 
with  Latin  poetry,  he  brought  with  him  to  this  achieve- 

1  This  poem  must  have  been  written  between  1476,  the  date  of  Si 
monetta's  death,  and  1478,  the  date  of  Giuliano's  murder,  when  Poliziano 
was  about  twenty-four.    Chronology  prevents  us  from  regarding  it  as  the 
work  of  a  boy  of  fourteen,  as  Roscoe  thought,  or  of  sixteen,  as  Hallam 
concluded. 

*  His  Latin  elegies  on  Simonetta  and  on  Albiera  degli  Albizzi,  and 
those  Greek  epigrams  which  Scaliger  preferred  to  the  Latin  verses  of  his 
maturity,  had  been  already  written. 

s  From  Le  Stanze,  i.  7,  we  learn  that  he  interrupted  the  translation 
of  the  Iliad  in  order  to  begin  this  poem  in  Italian.  He  never  took  it  up 
again.  It  remains  a  noble  torso,  the  most  splendid  extant  version  of  a 
Greek  poem  in  Latin  by  a  modern  hand. 


403  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

ment  a  genius  apt  to  comprehend  the  spirit  of  the 
Renaissance  in  its  pomp  and  liberty  and  tranquil 
loveliness.  The  noble  and  yet  sensuous  manner 
of  the  great  Venetian  painters,  their  dignity  of  form, 
their  luxury  of  color,  their  boldness  and  decision, 
their  imperturbable  serenity  of  mundane  joy — the 
choicer  delicacy  of  the  Florentine  masters,  their  re- 
finement of  outline,  selection  of  type,  suggestion  of 
restrained  emotion — the  pure  design  of  the  Tuscan 
sculptors,  the  suavity  and  flexibility  of  the  Lombard 
plasticatori — all  these  qualities  of  Italian  figurative 
art  appear,  as  it  were  in  bud,  in  the  Stanze.  Poli- 
ziano's  crowning  merit  as  a  stylist  was  that  he  knew 
how  to  blend  the  antique  and  the  romantic,  correct 
drawing  with  fleshly  fullness.  Breadth  of  design  and 
harmony  of  color  have  rarely  been  produced  in  more 
magnificent  admixture.  The  octave  stanza,  which  in 
the  hands  of  Boccaccio  was  languid  and  diffuse,  in  the 
hands  of  Lorenzo  harsh,  in  the  hands  of  Pulci  rugged, 
became  under  Poliziano's  treatment  an  inexhaustible 
instrument  of  varying  melodies.  At  one  time,  beneath 
his  touch,  the  meter  takes  an  epic  dignity;  again  it 
sinks  to  idyllic  sweetness,  or  mourns  with  the  elegy,  or 
"exults  with  the  ode.  Its  movement  is  rapid  or  re- 
laxed, smooth  or  vibrating,  undulatory  or  impetuous, 
as  he  has  chosen.  When  we  reflect  how  many  genera- 
tions cf  poets  it  required  to  bring  the  Sonnet  to  com- 
pleteness, we  may  marvel  at  this  youth,  in  an  age 
when  scholarship  absorbed  inventive  genius,  who 
was  able  at  one  stroke  to  do  for  the  octave  stanza 
what  Marlowe  did  for  our  Blank  Verse.  Poliziano 
gave  to  Ariosto  the  Italian  epical  meter  perfected, 


FORM   SUPERIOR    TO    MATTER.  403 

and  established  a  standard  of  style  amid  the  anarchy 
which  threatened  the  literature  of  Italy  with  ruin. 

Yet  it  must  be  confessed  that,  after  all,  it  is  chiefly 
the  style  of  Poliziano  that  deserves  praise.  Like  so 
much  else  of  Renaissance  work — like  the  Farnesina 
frescoes  in  Rome,  or  Giulio  Romano's  luxuriant  ara- 
besques at  Mantua,  or  the  efflorescence  of  foliage  and 
cupids  in  the  bass-reliefs  of  palace  portals  at  Venice— 
there  is  but  little  solid  thought  or  serious  feeling  un- 
derneath this  decorative  richness.  Those  who  cannot 
find  a  pleasure  in  form  for  its  own  sake,  independent 
of  matter,  will  never  be  able  to  do  Poliziano  justice. 
This  brings  us  to  the  subject  of  the  Stanze.  They 
were  written  to  celebrate  the  prowess  of  Giuliano  de' 
Medici,  Lorenzo's  brother,  in  a  tournament  held  at 
Florence  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1478.  This 
fact  is  worth  consideration.  The  poem  which  opened 
a  new  age  for  Italian  literature,  had  no  nobler  theme 
than  a  Court  pageant.  Dante  had  been  inspired  to 
sing  the  epic  of  the  human  soul.  Petrarch  finished 
a  portrait  of  the  life  through  love  of  an  impassioned 
man.  Boccaccio  bound  up  in  one  volume  a  hundred 
tales,  delineating  society  in  all  its  aspects.  Then  the 
Muse  of  Italy  fell  asleep.  Poliziano  aroused  her  with 
the  full  deep  intonations  of  a  golden  instrument.  But 
what  was  the  burden  of  his  song  ?  Giuliano  de'  Me- 
dici loved  the  fair  Simonetta,  and  bore  away  the  prize 
in  a  toy-tournament. 

This  marks  the  change  effected  by  a  century  of 
prince-craft.  Henceforth  great  poets  were  to  care  less 
for  what  they  sang  than  for  the  style  in  which  they 
sang.  Henceforth  poetry  in  Italy  was  written  to_ 


404  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

please — to  please  patrons  who  were  flattered  with  false 
pedigrees  and  absurd  mythologies,  with  the  imputa- 
tion of  virtues  they  never  possessed,  and  with  the 
impudent  palliation  of  shame  apparent  to  the  world. 
Henceforth  the  bards  of  Ausonia  deigned  to  tickle 
the  ears  of  lustful  boys  and  debauched  cardinals,  buy- 
ing the  bread  of  courtly  sloth — how  salt  it  tasted  let 
Tasso  and  Guarini  tell — with  jests  or  panegyrics. 
Liberty  could  scarcely  be  named  in  verse  when  natives 
and  strangers  vied  together  in  enslaving  Italy.  To 
praise  the  great  deeds  of  bygone  heroes  within  hear- 
ing of  pusillanimous  princes,  would  have  been  an  insult, 
Even  satires  upon  a  degraded  present,  aspirations 
after  a  noble  future,  prophecies  of  resurrection  from 
the  tomb — those  last  resorts  of  a  national  literature 
that  retains  its  strength  through  evil  days — were  un- 
known upon  the  lips  of  the  Renaissance  poets.  Art 
had  become  a  thing  of  pleasure,  sometimes  infamous, 
too  often  nugatory.  The  fault  of  this  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  have  rested  with  one  man  more  than  with 
another;  nor  can  we  lay  the  blame  on  Poliziano, 
though  he  undoubtedly  represented  the  class  who  were 
destined  to  continue  literature  upon  these  lines.  It 
was  the  combined  result  of  scholarship,  which  for  a 
whole  century  had  diverted  the  minds  of  men  to  the 
form  and  words  of  literature;  of  court-life,  which  had 
enfeebled  the  recipients  of  princely  patronage;  of 
tyranny,  which  encouraged  flattery,  dissimulation,  and 
fraud;  of  foreign  oppression,  which  already  was  be- 
ginning to  enervate  a  race  of  slaves;  of  revived  pagan- 
ism, which  set  the  earlier  beliefs  and  aspirations  of 
the  soul  at  unequal  warfare  with  emancipated  lusts  and 


DEBASEMENT   OF   THE   AGR.  405 

sensualities;  of  indolence,  which  loved  to  toy  with 
trifles,  instead  of  thinking  and  creating  thought;  of 
social  inequalities,  which  forced  the  poet  to  eat  a 
master's  bread,  and  turned  the  scholars  of  Italy  into  a 
crowd  of  servile  and  yet  arrogant  beggars.  All  these 
circumstances,  and  many  more  of  the  same  kind,  were 
slowly  and  surely  undermining  the  vigor  of  the  Italian 
intellect.  Over  the  meridian  splendor  of  Le  Stanze 
we  already  see  their  influences  floating  like  a  vaporous 
miasma. 

Italy,  though  never  so  chivalrous  as  the  rest  of 
Europe,  yet  preserved  the  pompous  festivities  of  feudal- 
ism. Jousts  were  held  in  all  great  cities,  and  it  was 
reckoned  part  of  a  courtier's  business  to  be  a  skillful 
cavalier.  At  Florence  the  custom  survived  of  celebrat- 
ing the  first  of  May  with  tournaments,  and  on  great 
occasions  the  wealthy  families  spent  large  sums  of 
money  in  providing  pastimes  of  this  sort.  February 
7,  1468,  witnessed  a  splendid  spectacle,  when  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici,  mounted  successively  on  chargers  presented 
to  him  by  the  Duke  of  Ferrara  and  the  King  of 
Naples,  attired  in  armor  given  by  the  Duke  of  Milan, 
bearing  the  fleurs  de  lys  of  France  conferred  upon  the 
Medici  by  Louis  XL,  and  displaying  on  his  pennon 
for  a  motto  Le  Terns  revient,  won  the  prize  of  valor 
before  the  populace  assembled  in  the  square  of  S. 
Croce.  Luca  Pulci,  the  descendant  of  an  ancient 
house  of  Tuscan  nobles,  composed  an  adulatory  poem 
in  octave  stanzas  on  this  event.  So  changed  were 
the  times  that  this  scion  of  Florentine  aristocracy  felt 
no  shame  in  fawning  on  a  despot  risen  from  the  people 
to  enslave  his  city.  Yet  the  spectacle  was  worthy 


406  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

celebration.  Lorenzo,  the  banker's  son,  the  Platonist, 
the  diplomatist  and  tyrant,  charging  in  the  lists  of 
feudalism  beneath  Arnolfo's  tower,  with  the  lilies  of 
France  upon  his  shield  and  the  device  of  the  Renais- 
sance on  his  banner — this  figured  symbol  of  the  meet- 
ing of  two  ages  in  a  single  man  was  no  mean  subject 
for  a  poem ! 

From  Poliziano's  Stanze  we  learn  no  such  charac- 
teristic details  concerning  Giuliano's  later  tournament. 
Though  the  poem  is  called  La  Giostra,  the  insigni- 
ficant subject  disappears  beneath  a  wealth  of  illustra- 
tion. The  episodes,  including  the  pictures  of  the 
Golden  Age  and  of  the  garden  and  palace  of  Venus, 
form  the  real  strength  of  a  masterpiece  which  blent  the 
ancient  and  the  modern  world  in  a  work  of  art  glowing 
with  Italian  fancy.  That  La  Giostra  has  no  subject- 
matter,  no  theme  of  weight  to  wear  the  poet  thin 
through  years  of  anxious  toil,  no  progress  from  point 
to  point,  no  chain  of  incidents  and  no  romantic  evolu- 
tion, is  a  matter  of  little  moment.  When  Giuliano  de' 
Medici  died  before  the  altar  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin 
on  April  26,  1478,  Poliziano  laid  down  his  pen  and 
left  the  Stanze  unfinished.1  It  cannot  be  said  that  the 
poem  suffered,  or  that  posterity  lost  by  this  abrupt 
termination  of  a  work  conceived  without  a  central 
thought.  Enough  had  been  already  done  to  present 
Italy  with  a  model  of  the  style  she  needed;  and  if 
we  ask  why  La  Giostra  should  have  become  imme- 

1  By  a  strange  coincidence  this  was  the  anniversary  of  his  love,  Simon- 
etta's,  death  in  1476.  The  close  connection  between  her  untimely  end — 
celebrated  by  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  in  his  earlier  Rime,  by  Poliziano  in  his 
Latin  Elegy  and  again  in  \.\\&Giostra — and  the  renascence  of  Italian  poetry, 
makes  her  portrait  by  Botticelli  della  Francesca  in  the  Pitti  interesting 


LA    GIOSTRA.  C*°7x 

^»»— — — *^ 

liately  popular  in  spite  of  its  peculiar  texture  and  its 
ibrupt  conclusion,  the  answer  is  not  far  to  seek. 
Poliziano  incarnated  the  spirit  of  his  age,  and  gave 
the  public  what  satisfied  their  sense  of  fitness.  The 
three  chief  enthusiasms  of  the  fifteenth  century — for 
classical  literature,  for  artistic  beauty,  and  for  nature 
tranquilly  enjoyed — were  so  fused  and  harmonized 
within  the  poet's  soul  as  to  produce  a  style  of  unmis- 
takable originality  and  charming  ease.  Poliziano  felt 
he  delights  of  the  country  with  serene  idyllic  rapture, 
lot  at  second  hand  through  the  ancients,  but  with  the 
'oluptuous  enjoyment  of  the  Florentine  who  loved  his 
rilla.  He  had,  besides,  a  sense  of  form  analogous 
to  that  possessed  by  the  artists  of  his  age,  which 
guided  him  in  the  selection  and  description  of  the 
scenes  he  painted.  Again,  his  profound  and  refined 
erudition  enabled  him  "  to  shower,"  as  Giovio  phrased 
it,  "the  finest  flowers  of  antique  poetry  upon  the 
people."  Therefore,  while  he  felt  nature  like  one  who 
worshiped  her  for  her  own  sake  and  for  the  joy  she 
gave  him,  he  saw  in  her  the  subjects  of  a  thousand 
graceful  pictures,  and  these  pictures  he  studied  through 
a  radiant  haze  of  antique  reminiscences.  Each  stanza 
of  La  Giostra  is  a  mimic  world  of  beauty,  art,  and 
scholarship;  a  painting  where  the  object  stands  before 
us  modeled  with  relief  of  light  and  shade  in  finely 
modulated  hues;  a  brief  anthology  of  daintily-culled 
phrases,  wafting  to  our  memories  the  perfume  of 
Greece,  Rome,  and  Florence  in  her  prime.  These 
delicate  little  masterpieces  are,  turn  by  turn,  a  picture 
of  Botticelli,  a  fresco  by  Giulio  Romano,  an  engraving 
of  Mantegna,  a  bass-relief  of  young  Buonarroti,  or  a 


408  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

garden-scene  of  Gozzoli,  expressed  in  the  purest  dic- 
tion of  all  literatures  by  a  poet  who,  while  imitating, 
never  ceased  to  be  original.1  Nothing  more  was 
needed  by  a  nation  of  idyllic  dreamers,  artists  and 
scholars. 

What  Poliziano  might  have  achieved,  if  he  had 
found  a  worthy  theme  for  the  employment  of  his 
powers,  it  would  be  idle  to  ask.  It  is  perhaps  the 
condemnation  of  the  man  and  of  his  age  that  the 
former  did  not  seek  heroic  subjects  for  song,  and  the 
latter  did  not  demand  them — in  a  word  that  neither 
poet  nor  public  had  in  them  anything  heroic  whatso- 
ever. The  fact  is  undeniably  true;  but  this  does  not 
deprive  Poliziano  of  the  merit  of  such  verses  as  the 
following: 

After  such  happy  wise,  in  ancient  years, 
Dwelt  the  old  nations  in  the  age  of  gold; 
Nor  had  the  font  been  stirr'd  of  mothers'  tears 
For  sons  in  war's  fell  labor  stark  and  cold; 
Nor  trusted  they  to  ships  the  wild  wind  steers, 
Nor  yet  had  oxen  groaning  plowed  the  wold; 
Their  houses  were  huge  oaks,  whose  trunks  had  store 
Of  honey,  and  whose  boughs  thick  acorns  bore. 

Nor  yet,  in  that  glad  time,  the  accursed  thirst 
Of  cruel  gold  had  fallen  on  this  fair  earth: 

'  I  must  refer  my  readers  to  the  original,  and  to  the  translations  pub 
lished  by  me  in  Sketches  and  Studies  in  Italy,  pp.  217-224.  The  descrip- 
tion of  Simonetta  in  the  meadow  (Giostra,  i.  43  and  following)  might  be 
compared  to  a  Florentine  Idyll  by  Benozzo  Gozzoli;  the  birth  of  Venus 
from  the  waves  (i.  99-107)  is  a  blending  of  Botticelli's  Venus  in  the  Uffizzi 
with  his  Primavera  in  the  Belle  Arti;  the  picture  of  Venus  in  the  lap  of 
Mars  (i.  122-124)  might  be  compared  to  work  by  Piero  di  Cosimo,  or, 
since  poetry  embraces  many  suggestions,  to  paintings  from  the  schools 
of  Venice.  The  metamorphoses  of  Jupiter  (i.  104-107)  remind  us  of 
Giulio  Romano.  The  episode  of  Ariadne  and  the  Bacchic  revel  (i.  1 10- 
112)  is  in  the  style  of  Mantegna's  engravings.  All  these  passages  will 
be  found  translated  by  me  in  the  book  above  quoted. 


THE    ORFEO.  409 

Joyous  in  liberty  they  lived  at  first; 
Unplowed  the  fields  sent  forth  their  teeming  birth: 
Till  fortune,  envious  of  such  concord,  burst 
The  bond  of  law,  and  pity  banned  and  worth; 
Within  their  breasts  sprang  luxury  and  that  rage 
Which  men  call  love  in  our  degenerate  age. 

A  somewhat  earlier  composition  than  La  Giostra 
was  La  Favola  di  Orfeo,  a  dramatic  poem  similar  in  form* 
to  the  Sacra  Rappresentazione,  with  a  classical  instead 
of  a  religious  subject.1  To  call  it  a  tragedy  would  be 
to  dignify  it  with  too  grand  a  title.  To  class  it  with 
pastorals  is  equally  impossible,  though  the  songs  of  the 
shepherds  and  wood-nymphs  may  be  said  to  have 
anticipated  the  style  of  Tasso's  Aminta  and  Guarini's 
Pastor  Fido.  Nor  again  is  it  properly  speaking  an 
opera,  though  it  was  undoubtedly  meant  for  music. 
The  Orfeo  combined  tragedy,  the  pastoral,  and  the 
opera  in  a  mixed  work  of  melodramatic  art,  which  by 
its  great  popularity  inspired  the  poets  of  Italy  to 
produce  specimens  of  each  kind,  and  prepared  the 
public  to  receive  them.2  Still,  in  form  and  movement, 
it  adhered  to  the  traditions  of  the  Sacra  Rappresenta- 

1  I  believe  the  Favola  di  Orfeo,  first  published  in  1494,  and  repub- 
lished  from  time  to  time  up  to  the  year  1776,  was  the  original  play  acted 
at  Mantua  before  the  Cardinal  Gonzaga.  It  is  not  divided  into  acts, 
and  has  the  usual  "  Annunziatore  della  Festa,"  of  the  Sucre  Rappre- 
sentazioni.  The  Orphei  Tragaedia,  published  by  the  Padre  Ireneo  Affd 
at  Venice  in  1776,  from  two  MSS.  collated  by  him,  may  be  regarded 
as  a  subsequent  recension  of  his  own  work  made  by  Poliziano.  It  is 
divided  into  five  acts,  and  is  far  richer  in  lyrical  passages.  Carducci 
prints  both  in  his  excellent  edition  of  Poliziano's  Italian  poems.  I  may 
refer  English  readers  to  my  own  translation  of  the  Orfeo  and  the  note 
upon  its  text,  Studies  and  Sketches  in  Italy,  pp.  226-242,  429,  430. 

*  The  popularity  of  Poliziano's  poems  is  proved  by  the  frequency 


410  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

zionc,  and  its  originality  consisted  in  the  substitution 
of  a  Pagan  for  a  Christian  fable. 

Unerring  instinct  guided  Poliziano  in  the  choice  of 
his  subject.  Orpheus  was  the  proper  hero  of  Renais- 
sance Italy — the  civilizer  of  a  barbarous  world  by  art 
and  poetry,  the  lover  of  beauty,  who  dared  to  invade 
Hell  and  moved  the  iron  heart  of  Pluto  with  a  song. 
Long  before  the  composition  of  Orfeo,  Boccaccio  had 
presented  the  same  conception  of  society  humanized  by 
culture  in  his  Ninfale  Fiesolano.  This  was  the  ideal 
of  the  Renaissance;  and,  what  is  more,  it  accurately 
symbolized  the  part  played  by  Italy  after  the  dissolution 
of  the  middle  ages.  In  the  myth  of  Orpheus  the 
humanism  of  the  Revival  became  conscious  of  itself. 
This  fable  was  the  Mystery  of  the  new  age,  the  allegory 
of  the  work  appointed  for  the  nation.  Did  we  dare 
to  press  a  metaphor  to  the  verge  of  the  fantastic,  we 
might  even  read  in  the  martyrdom  of  Orpheus  by  the 
Maenads  a  prophecy  of  the  Italian  doom.  Italy,  who 
had  aroused  Europe  from  lethargy  with  the  voice  of 
poetry  and  learning,  who  had  inaugurated  a  new  age 
of  civil  and  social  refinement,  who  thought  she  could 
resist  the  will  of  God  by  arts  and  elegant  accom- 
plishments, after  triumphing  over  the  rude  forces  of 
nature  was  now  about  to  violate  the  laws  of  nature 
in  her  vices,  and  to  fall  a  victim  to  the  Maenads  of  in- 
current  barbarism,  inebriate  with  wine  and  blood, 
indifferent  to  the  magic  of  the  lyre,  avengers  blindly 
following  the  dictates  of  a  power  that  rules  the  destinies 

published  at  Florence  in  1558  for  the  use  ot  the  common  people.  It 
was  entitled  La  Historia  e  Favola  d'  Orfeo  alia  dolce  lira.  This  nar- 
rative version  of  Poliziano's  play  is  still  reprinted  from  time  to  time  foi 
the  Tuscan  contadini.  Carducci  cites  an  edition  of  Prato,  1860. 


MYTH  OF  ORPHEUS.  41; 

Df  nations.  Of  this  Italy,  Poliziano,  the  author  of 
Orfeo,  was  himself  the  representative  hero,  the  pro- 
tagonist, the  intellectual  dictator.1 

The  Orfeo  was  sent  with  a  letter  of  dedication  to 
Messer  Carlo  Canale,  the  obsequious  husband  of  that 
Vannozza,  who  bore  Cesare  and  Lucrezia  Borgia  to  the 
Pope  Alexander  VI.  Poliziano  says  that  he  "  wrote 
this  play  at  the  request  of  the  Most  Reverend  the 
Cardinal  of  Mantua,  in  the  space  of  two  days,  among 
continual  disturbances,  and  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  that 
it  might  be  the  better  comprehended  by  the  spectators." 
He  adds :  "  This  child  of  mine  is  of  a  sort  to  bring 
more  shame  than  honor  on  its  father." 

There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  year  1472, 
when  the  Cardinal  Francesco  Gonzaga  returned  from 
Bologna  to  Mantua,  and  was  received  with  "  triumphs 
and  pomps,  great  feasts  and  banquets,"  was  the  date  of 
its  composition.  If  so,  the  Orfeo  was  written  at  the 
age  of  eighteen.  It  could  not  have  been  played  later 
than  1483,  for  in  that  year  the  Cardinal  died.  At 
eighteen  Poliziano  was  already  famous  for  his  trans- 
lation of  the  Iliad.  He  had  gained  the  title  of  Homer- 
icus  JuventS)  and  was  celebrated  for  his  powers  of 
improvization.2  That  he  should  have  put  the  Orfeo 
together  in  forty-eight  hours  is  hardly  so  remarkable 
as  that  he  should  have  translated  Herodian  in  the 

1  No  one  who  has  read  Poliziano's  Greek  epigrams  on  Chrysocomus, 
or  who  knows  the  scandal  falsely  circulated  regarding  his  death,  will 
have  failed  to  connect  the  sentiments  put  into  the  mouth  of  Orpheus 
(Cardu:ci,  pp.  109-110)  with  the  personality  of  the  poet-scholar.  That 
the  passage  in  question  could  have  been  recited  with  applause  before  a 
Cardinal,  is  a  fact  of  much  significance. 

8  Perhaps  Ficino  was  the  first  to  give  him  this  title.  In  a  letter  of  his 
to  Lorenzo  de*  Medici  we  read:  "  Nutris  domi  Homericum  ilium  adoles- 
centem  Angelum  Politianum  qui  Graecam  Homeri  personam  Latinis 


41  a  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

• 

space  of  a  few  days,  while  walking  and  dictating 
For  the  Orfeo  is  but  a  slight  piece,  though  beautiful  and 
pregnant  with  the  germs  of  many  styles  to  be  de- 
veloped from  its  scenes.  The  plot  is  simple,  and  the 
whole  play  numbers  no  more  than  434  lines. 

To  do  the  Orfeo  justice,  we  ought  to  have  heard 
it  with  its  own  accompaniment  of  music.  Viewed  as 
a  tragedy,  judged  by  the  standard  of  our  Northern 
drama,  it  will  always  prove  a  disappointment.  That 
mastery  over  the  complex  springs  of  human  nature 
which  distinguished  the  first  efforts  of  Marlowe,  is 
almost  wholly  absent.  A  certain  adaptation  of  the 
language  to  the  characters,  in  the  rudeness  of  Thyrsis 
when  contrasted  with  the  rustic  elegance  of  Aristseus ; 
a  touch  of  feeling  in  Eurydice's  outcry  of  farewell ;  a 
discrimination  between  the  tender  sympathy  of  Proser- 
pine and  Pluto's  stern  relenting ;  a  spirited  representa- 
tion of  Bacchanalian  enthusiasm  in  the  Maenads;  an 
attempt  to  model  the  Satyr  Mnesillus  as  apart  from 
human  nature  and  yet  conscious  of  its  anguish — these 
points  constitute  the  chief  dramatic  features  of  the 
melodrama.  But  where  there  was  the  opportunity  of 
a  really  tragic  movement,  Poliziano  failed.  We  have 
only  to  read  the  lament  uttered  by  Orpheus  for  the 
loss  of  Eurydice,  in  order  to  perceive  how  fine  a  situa- 
tion has  been  spoiled.  The  pathos  which  might  have 
made  us  sympathize  with  the  lover  in  his  misery,  the 
passion  approaching  frenzy  which  might  have  justified 

coloribus  exprimat.  Exprimit  jam;  atque,  id  quod  mirum  est  ita  tener£ 
setate,  ita  exprimit  ut  nisi  quivis  Graecum  fuisse  Homerum  noverit  dubi- 
taturus  sit  e  duobus  uter  naturalis  sit  et  uter  pictus  Homerus  "  (Ep,  ed. 
Flor.  1494,  lib.  i.  p.  6).  Ficino  always  addressed  Poliziano  as  "  Poeta 
Homericus." 


DRAMATIC  AND   LYRIC   QUALITIES.  413 

his  misogyny,  are  absent.  Poliziano  seems  to  have 
already  felt  the  inspiration  of  the  Bacchic  chorus 
which  concludes  the  play,  and  to  have  forgotten  his 
duty  to  his  hero,  whose  sorrow  for  Eurydice  is  stulti- 
fied and  made  unmeaning  by  the  prosaic  expression  of 
a  base  resolve.  Yet,  when  we  return  from  these  criti- 
cisms to  the  real  merit  of  the  piece,  we  find  in  it  a 
charm  of  musical  language,  a  subtlety  of  musical 
movement,  which  are  irresistibly  fascinating.  Thought 
and  feeling  seem  alike  refined  to  a  limpidity  that  suits 
the  flow  of  melody  in  song.  The  very  words  evapo- 
rate and  lose  themselves  in  floods  of  sound.  Orpheus 
himself  is  a  purely  lyrical  personage.  Of  character, 
he  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  anything  marked;  and 
his  part  rises  to  its  height  precisely  in  the  passage 
where  the  singer  has  to  be  displayed.  Thus  the  Orfeo 
is  a  good  poem  only  where  the  situation  is  less  dra- 
matic than  lyrical,  and  its  finest  scene  was,  fortunately 
for  the  author,  one  in  which  the  dramatic  motive  could 
be  lyrically  expressed.  Before  the  gates  of  Hades 
and  the  throne  of  Proserpine,  Orpheus  sings,  and  his 
singing  is  the  right  outpouring  of  a  musician-poet's 
soul.  Each  octave  resumes  the  theme  of  the  last 
stanza  with  a  swell  of  utterance,  a  crescendo  of  intona- 
tion, that  recalls  the  passionate  and  unpremeditated 
descant  of  a  bird  upon  the  boughs  alone.  To  this 
true  quality  of  music  is  added  the  persuasiveness  of 
pleading.  Even  while  we  read,  the  air  seems  to  vi- 
brate with  pure  sound,  and  the  rich  recurrence  of  the 
tune  is  felt  upon  the  opening  of  each  successive  stanza. 
That  the  melody  of  this  incomparable  song  is  lost, 
must  be  reckoned  a  misfortune.  We  have  reason  to 


414  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

believe  that  the  part  of  Orpheus  was  taken  by  Messer 
Baccio  Ugolini,  singing  to  the  viol.1 

Space  does  not  permit  me  to  detach  the  whole 
scene  in  Hades  from  the  play  and  print  it  here;  to 
quote  a  portion  of  it  would  be  nothing  less  than  muti- 
lation.2 I  must  content  myself  with  this  Chorus  of  the 
Maenads,  which  contains,  as  in  a  kernel,  the  whole 
dithyrambic  poetry  of  the  Italians: 

Bacchus!  we  all  must  follow  thee! 
Bacchus!    Bacchus!    Ohe!    Ohtf! 

With  ivy  coronals,  bunch  and  berry, 

Crown  we  our  heads  to  worship  thee! 
Thou  hast  bidden  us  to  make  merry 

Day  and  night  with  jollity! 
Drink  then!    Bacchus  is  here!    Drink  free, 
And  hand  ye  the  drinking-cup  to  me! 

Bacchus!  we  all  must  follow  thee! 

Bacchus!    Bacchus!    Ohe"!    Ohe"! 

See,  I  have  emptied  my  horn  already; 

Stretch  hither  your  beaker  to  me,  I  pray; 
Are  the  hills  and  the  lawns  where  we  roam  unsteady? 

Or  is  it  my  brain  that  reels  away? 
Let  every  one  run  to  and  fro  through  the  hay, 
As  ye  see  me  run!     Ho!  after  me! 

Bacchus!  we  all  must  follow  thee! 

Bacchus!     Bacchus!     Ohe"!     OheM 


1  Among  the  frescoes  by  Signorelli  at  Orvieto  there  is  a  tondo  in 
monochrome,  representing  Orpheus  before  the  throne  of  Pluto.     He  is 
Pressed  like  a  poet,  with  a  laurel  crown,  and  he  is  playing  on  a  violin 
ot  antique  form.    Medieval  demons  are  guarding  the  prostrate  Eurydice. 
It  would  be  curious  to  know  whether  a  rumor  of  the  Mantuan  pageant 
had  reached  the  ears  of  the  Cortonese  painter,  or  whether  he  had  read 
the  edition  of  1494. 

2  The  original  should  be  read  in  the  version  first  published  by  the 
Padre  AfTo  (Carducci,  pp.  148-154).     My  translation  will  be  found  it 
Studies  and  Sketches  in  Italy,  pp.  235-237. 


LOVE   SONGS.  415 

Mothinks  I  am  dropping  in  swoon  or  slumber; 

Am  I  drunken  or  sober,  yes  or  no? 
What  are  these  weights  my  feet  encumber? 

You  too  are  tipsy,  well  I  know! 
Let  every  one  do  as  ye  see  me  do, 
Let  every  one  drink  and  quaff  like  me! 

Bacchus!  we  all  must  follow  thee! 

Bacchus!    Bacchus!    OheM    Oh<S! 

Cry  Bacchus!    Cry  Bacchus!    Be  blithe  and  merry, 

Tossing  wine  down  your  throats  away! 
Let  sleep  then  come  and  our  gladness  bury: 

Drink  you,  and  you,  and  you,  while  ye  may! 
Dancing  is  over  for  me  to-day. 
Let  every  one  cry  aloud  Evohe"! 

Bacchus!  we  all  must  follow  thee! 

Bacchus!    Bacchus!    One*!    Ohe"! 

It  remains  to  speak  of  the  third  class  of  poems 
which  the  great  scholar  and  supple  courtier  flung  like 
wild  flowers  with  a  careless  hand  from  the  chariot  of 
his  triumph  to  the  Capitolian  heights  of  erudition. 
Small  store,  indeed,  he  set  by  them — these  Italian  love- 
songs,  hastily  composed  to  please  Donna  Ippolita 
Leoncina,  the  titular  mistress  of  his  heart;  thrown  off 
to  serve  the  turn  of  Giuliano  and  his  younger  friends ; 
or  improvised,  half  jestingly,  to  meet  the  humor«of  his 
princely  patron,  when  Lorenzo,  quitting  the  laurel- 
crowned  bust  of  Plato,  or  the  groves  of  Careggi,  or 
the  audience- chamber  where  he  parleyed  with  the 
envoys  of  the  Sforza,  went  abroad  like  King  Manfred 
of  old  with  lute  and  mandoline  and  viol  to  serenade 
the  windows  of  some  facile  beauty  in  the  twilight  of  a 
night  of  June.1  Little  did  Poliziano  dream  that  his 

1  "La  notte  esceva  per  Barlctta  (re  Manfredi)  cantando  strambotti  e 
canzoni,  che  iva  pigliando  lo  frisco,  e  con  isso  ivano  due  musici  Sicilian! 
ch*  erano  gran  romanzatori."  M.  Spinello,  in  Scr.  Rer.  Ital.  vii.  Spin- 
ello's  Chronicles  are,  however,  probably  a  sixteenth-century  forgery. 


416  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

learning  would  pass  away  almost  unreckoned,  but  that 
men  of  after  time  would  gather  the  honey  of  the  golden 
days  of  the  Renaissance  from  these  wilding  gar- 
lands.1 Yet,  however  slightly  Poliziano  may  have 
prized  these  productions  of  his  early  manhood,  he 
proved  that  the  Canzone,  the  Rispetto,  and  the  Ballata 
were  as  much  his  own  in  all  their  multiformity  of  lyric 
loveliness,  as  were  the  rich  sonorous  measures  of  the 
octave  stanza.  Expressing  severally  the  depths  of 
tender  emotion,  the  caprices  of  adoring  passion,  and 
the  rhythmic  sentiment  that  winds  in  myriad  move- 
ments of  the  dance,  these  three  kinds  of  poem  already 
belonged  to  the  people  and  to  love.  Poliziano  dis- 
played his  inborn  taste  and  mastery  of  art  in  nothing 
more  than  in  the  ease  with  which  he  preserved  the 
passionate  simplicity  of  the  Tuscan  Volkslied,  while 
giving  it  a  place  among  the  lyrics  of  the  learned.  We 
have  already  seen  how  that  had  been  achieved  by 
Boccaccio  and  Sacchetti,  and  afterwards  in  a  measure 
by  Lorenzo  de'  Medici.  But  the  problem  of  writing 
love-poetry  for  the  people  in  their  own  forms,  without 
irony  a'nd  innuendo,  was  not  now  so  easy  as  it  had  been 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  when  no  barrier  had  yet  arisen 
between  educated  poets  and  the  folk.  Nor  had  even 
Boccaccio,  far  less  Lorenzo,  solved  it  with  the  exqui- 
site tact  and  purity  of  style  we  find  in  all  Poliziano's 

1  A  letter  addressed  by  Poliziano  to  Lorenzo  in  1488  from  Acqua- 
pendente  justifies  the  belief  that  the  cultivation  of  popular  poetry  had 
become  a  kind  of  pastime  in  the  Medicean  circle.  He  says:  "  Yesterday 
we  set  off  for  Viterbo.  We  are  all  gay,  and  make  good  cheer,  and  all 
along  the  road  we  whet  our  wits  at  furbishing  up  some  song  or  May-day 
ditty,  wl  ich  here  in  Acquapendente  with  their  Roman  costume  seem  to 
me  more  fanciful  than  those  at  home."  See  Del  Lungo's  edition  of  the 
Prose  Volgari,  etc.,  p.  75. 


RISPETTI  IN   OTTAVA    RIMA.  4«7 

verses.  In  order  to  comprehend  their  charm,  we  must 
transfer  ourselves  to  Florence  on  a  summer  night, 
when  the  prince  is  abroad  upon  the  streets  attended 
by  singing-boys  as  beautiful  as  Sandro's  angels.  The 
professor's  chair  is  forgotten,  and  Plato's  spheres  are 
left  to  turn  unheeded.  Pulci  and  Poliziano  join  hands 
with  girls  from  the  workshop  and  the  attic.  Lorenzo 
and  Pico  figure  in  the  dance  with  'prentice-lads  and 
carvers  of  wood- work  or  marble.  All  through  the 
night  beneath  the  stars  the  music  of  their  lutes  is 
ringing;  and  when  the  dancing  stops,  they  gather 
round  some  balcony,  or  hold  their  own  upon  the 
square  in  matches  of  improvised  melody  with  the  un- 
known rhymsters  of  the  people.  What  can  be  prettier 
than  the  ballad  of  roses  made  for  "  such  a  night,"  by 
Angelo  Poliziano  ? l 

Poliziano's  Rispetti  are  written  for  the  most  part 
in  ottava  rima.  This  form  alone  suffices  to  mark  them 
out  as  literary  reproductions  of  the  poetry  upon  which 
they  are  modeled.  In  the  Rispetti  more  than  the 
Ballate  we  notice  a  certain  want  of  naivete,  which  dis- 
tinguishes them  from  the  racier  inspirations  of  the 
popular  Muse.  That  passionate  insight  into  the  soul 
and  essence  of  emotion  which  rarely  fails  the  peasant 
in  his  verse  however  rude,  is  here  replaced  by  concetti 
rounded  into  pearls  of  fancy  with  the  daintiest  art. 
Those  brusque  and  vehement  images  that  flash  the 
light  of  imagination  on  the  movements  of  the  heart, 
throbbing  with  intensest  natural  feeling,  yield  to  care- 
fully selected  metaphors  developed  with  a  strict  sense 

1  See  above,  p.  378.    For  translations  of  several  Ballate  by  Poliz 
iano  I  may  refer  to  my  Sketches  and  Studies  in  Italy,  pp.  190-225. 


418  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

of  economy.  Instead  of  the  young  contadtno  willing 
to  mortgage  Paradise  for  his  dama,  worshiping  her 
with  body,  will  and  soul,  compelling  the  morning  and 
the  evening  star  and  the  lilies  of  the  field  and  the  bells 
that  swing  their  notes  of  warning  over  Rome,  to  serve 
the  bidding  of  his  passion,  we  have  the  scholar-court- 
ier, who  touches  love  with  the  finger-tips  for  pastime, 
and  who  imitates  the  gold  of  the  heart  with  baser 
metal  of  fine  rhetoric.  Still  we  find  in  these  Rispetti 
a  quality  which  their  rustic  models  lack.  This  is  the 
roseate  fluency  and  honeyed  rapture  of  their  author 
— an  exquisite  limpidity  and  ease  of  diction  that  reveal 
the  inborn  gift  of  art.  Language  in  Poliziano's  hand 
is  plastic,  taking  form  like  softest  wax,  so  that  no 
effort  of  composition,  no  labor  of  the  file  can  be 
discerned. 

Nee  pluteum  ca*.dit  nee  demorsos  sapit  ungues. 

This  line  of  Persius  denotes  the  excellences  no  less 
than  the  faults  of  his  erotic  poetry,  so  charming  in  its 
flow,  so  fit  to  please  a  facile  ear,  so  powerless  to 
stir  the  depth  of  the  soul  or  wring  relenting  from 
reluctant  hearts.  Compared  with  the  love-poetry  of 
elder  poets,  these  Rispetti  are  what  the  artificial 
epigrams  of  Callimachus  or  the  Anacreontics  of  the 
Alexandrian  versifiers  were  to  the  ardent  stanzas  of 
Sappho,  the  impassioned  scolia  of  Pindar.  While 
they  fail  to  reflect  the  ingenuous  emotions  of  youth 
exulting  in  the  Paradise  of  love  without  an  after- 
thought, they  no  less  fail  to  embody  philosophy  or 
chivalrous  religion  or  the  tragedy  of  passions  in  con- 


RISPETTI   CONT1NUAT1.  419 

flict.     They  are  inspired  by  Aphrodite  Pandemos,  and 
the  joys  of  which  they  tell  are  carnal.1 

What  has  been  said  about  the  detached  Rispetti,  is 
true  of  those  longer  poems  which  consist  of  many 
octave  stanzas  strung  together  with  a  continuity  of 
pleading  rhetoric.  The  facility  bordering  on  negli- 
gence of  their  construction  is  apparent.  Verses  that 
occur  in  one,  reappear  in  others  without  alteration. 
All  repeat  the  same  arguments,  the  same  enticements 
to  a  less  than  lawful  love.  The  code  of  Florentine 
wooing  may  be  conveniently  studied  in  the  rambling 
paragraphs,  while  the  levity  of  their  declarations  and 
the  fluency  of  their  vows,  doing  the  same  service  on 
different  occasions,  show  them  to  be  "  false  as  dicers' 
oaths,"  mere  verses  of  the  moment,  made  to  sway  a 
yielding  woman's  heart.2  Yet  who  can  help  enjoying 
them,  when  he  connects  their  effusiveness  of  fervent 
language  with  the  episodes  of  the  Novelle,  illustrated 
by  figures  borrowed  from  contemporary  frescoes  ? 
Those  sinewy  lads  of  Signorelli  and  Masuccio,  in 
parti-colored  hose  and  tight  jackets,  climbing  mul- 
berry-tree or  vine  beneath  their  lady's  window;  those 
girls  with  the  demure  eyes  of  Lippo  Lippi  and  Ban- 
dello,  suspending  rope-ladders  from  balconies  to  let 
their  Romeo  escape  at  daybreak:  those  lovers  rush- 
ing, half-clad  in  shirt  or  jerkin,  from  bower  and  bed- 
chamber to  cross  their  swords  with  jealous  husbands  at 

1  For  translations  of  detached  Rispetti,  see  my  Sketches  and  Studies 
in  Italy,  p.  197. 

*  I  have  translated  one  long  Rispetto  Continuato  or  Lettera  in  Is- 
trambotti;  see  Sketches  and  Studies  in  Italy,  pp.  198-201.  It  is  prob- 
able that  Poliziano  wrote  these  love-poems  for  his  young  friends,  which 
may  excuse  the  frequent  repetitions  of  the  same  thoughts  and  phrases. 


420  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

street  corners;  rise  before  us  and  sing  their  love -songs 
in  these  verses  of  Poliziano,  written  for  precisely  such 
occasions  to  express  the  very  feelings  of  these  heroes 
of  romance.  After  all,  too,  there  is  a  certain  sort  of 
momentary  sincerity  in  their  light  words  of  love. 

Three  lyrics  of  higher  artistic  intention  and  of 
very  different  caliber  mark  the  zenith  of  Poliziano's 
achievement.  These  are  the  portrait  of  the  country 
girl,  La  brunettina  mia;  the  canzone  to  La  Bella 
Simonetta,  written  for  Giuliano  de'  Medici;  and  the 
magnificent  imitation  of  Petrarch's  manner,  beginning 
Monti,  valli,  antri  e  colli^  They  are  three  studies  in 
pictorial  poetry,  transparent,  limpid,  of  incomparable 
freshness.  A  woman  has  sat  for  the  central  figure  of 
each,  and  the  landscape  round  her  is  painted  with  the 
delicacy  of  a  quattrocento  Florentine.  La  Brunettina 
is  the  simple  village  beauty,  who  bathes  her  face  in  the 
fountain,  and  crowns  her  blonde  hair  with  a  wreath  of 
wild  flowers.  She  is  a  blossoming  branch  of  thorn  in 
spring.  Her  breasts  are  May  roses,  her  lips  are 
strawberries.  The  portrait  is  so  ethereally  tinted  and 
so  firmly  modeled  that  we  seem  to  be  looking  at  a 
study  painted  by  a  lover  from  the  life.  Simonetta 
moves  with  nobler  grace  and  a  diviner  majesty2: 

1  In  Carducci's  edition,  pp.  342,  355,  363.  The  first  seems  to  me  un- 
translatable. The  second  and  third  are  translated  by  me  in  Sketches 
and  Studies,  etc.,  pp.  202-207. 

*  But  she  who  gives  my  soul  sorrow  and  mirth, 
Seemed  Pallas  in  her  gait,  and  in  her  face  • 
Venus;  for  every  grace 
And  beauty  of  the  world  in  her  combined. 
Merely  to  think,  far  more  to  tell  my  mind, 

Of  that  most  wondrous  sight,  confoundeth  me; 
For  mid  the  maidens  she 


THREE    CANZONL  421 

In  lei  sola  raccolto 

Era  quant'  e  d*  onesto  e  bello  al  mondo. 

Un'  altra  sia  tra  Ic  belle  la  prima: 

Costei  non  prima  chiamesi,  ma  sola; 

Che  '1  giglio  e  la  viola 

Cedono  e  gli  altri  fior  tutti  alia  rosa. 
Pendevon  dalla  testa  luminosa 

Scherzando  per  la  fronte  e  suoi  crin  d'  oro, 

Mentre  ella  nel  bel  coro 

Movea  ristretti  al  suono  e  dolci  passi. 

She  is  the  lady  of  the  Stanze,  whom  Giuliano  found 
among  the  fields  that  April  morning 1 : 

Candida  e  ella,  e  Candida  la  vesta, 
Ma  pur  di  rose  e  fior  dipinta  e  d'  erba; 
Lo  inanellato  crin  dall'  aurea  testa 
Scende  in  la  fronte  umilmente  superba. 

Who  most  resembled  her  was  found  most  rare. 
Call  ye  another  first  among  the  fair; 

Not  first,  but  sole  before  my  lady  set: 

Lily  and  violet 

And  all  the  flowers  below  the  rose  must  bow. 
Down  from  her  royal  head  and  lustrous  brow 

The  golden  curls  fell  sportively  unpent. 

While  through  the  choir  she  went 
With  feet  well  lessoned  to  the  rhythmic  sound. 

»  White  is  the  maid,  and  white  the  robe  around  her, 
With  buds  and  roses  and  thin  grasses  pied; 
Enwreathe"d  folds  of  golden  tresses  crowned  her, 
Shadowing  her  forehead  fair  with  modest  pride: 
The  wild  wood  smiled;  the  thicket,  where  he  found  her, 
To  ease  his  anguish,  bloomed  on  every  side: 
Serene  she  sits,  with  gesture  queenly  mild, 
And  with  her  brow  tempers  the  tempests  wild. 

Reclined  he  found  her  on  the  swarded  grass 
In  jocund  mood;  and  garlands  she  had  made 
Of  every  flower  that  in  the  meadow  was, 
Or  on  her  robe  of  many  hues  displayed; 
But  when  she  saw  the  youth  before  her  pass, 
Raising  her  timid  head  awhile  she  stayed; 
Then  with  her  white  hand  gathered  up  her  dress, 
And  stood,  lap  full  of  flowers,  in  loveliness. 


432  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Ridegli  attorno  tutta  la  foresta, 
E  quanto  pub  sue  cure  disacerba, 
Nell'  atto  regalmente  e  mansueta; 
E  pur  col  ciglio  le  tempeste  acqueta. 

Ell'  era  assissa  sopra  la  verdura 
Allegra,  e  ghirlandetta  avea  contesta 
Di  quanti  fior  creasse  mai  natura, 
De'  quali  era  dipinta  la  sua  vesta. 
E  come  prima  al  giovan  pose  cura, 
Alquanto  paurosa  alzo  la  testa; 
Poi  con  la  bianca  man  ripreso  il  lembo, 
Levossi  in  pie  con  di  fior  pieno  un  grembo. 

All  the  defined  idealism,  the  sweetness  and  the  purity 
of  Tuscan  portraiture  are  in  these  stanzas.  Simonetta 
does  not  pass  by  with  a  salutation  in  a  mist  of  spiri- 
tual glory  like  Beatrice.  She  is  surrounded  with  no 
flames  of  sensual  desire  like  the  Griselda  of  Boccaccio. 
She  sits  for  her  portrait  in  a  tranquil  light,  or  moves 
across  the  canvas  with  the  dignity  of  a  great  lady: 

Lei  fuor  di  guisa  umana 
Mosse  con  maesta  1'  andar  celeste, 
E  con  man  sospendea  1'  ornata  veste 
Regale  in  atto  e  portamento  altero. 

It  was  a  rare  and  fugitive  moment  in  the  history 
of  art  when  Poliziano  could  paint  La  Simonetta  in 
these  verses,  and  Lippo  Lippi  showed  her  likeness  on 
cathedral  walls  of  Prato.  Different  models  of  femi- 
nine beauty,  different  ideals  of  womanly  grace  served 
the  painters  and  poets  of  a  more  developed  age ; 
Titian's  Flora  and  Dosso  Dossi's  Circe  illustrating  the 
Alcina  of  Ariosto  and  the  women  of  Guarini.  Once 
more,  it  is  the  thought  of  Simonetta  which  pervades 
the  landscape  of  the  third  canzone  I  have  mentioned. 
Herself  is  absent;  but,  as  in  a  lyric  of  Petrarch,  her 


LA    BELLA    SIMONETTA.  423 

spirit  is  felt,  and  we  are  made  to  see  her  throned 
beneath  the  gnarled  beech-branches  or  dipping  her 
foot  in  the  too  happy  rivulet.  Something  just  short 
of  perfection  in  the  staccato  exclamations  of  the  final 
strophe  reminds  us  of  Poliziano's  most  serious  defect. 
Amid  so  much  tenderness  of  natural  feeling,  he  fails  to 
make  us  believe  in  the  reality  of  his  emotion.  Not 
passion,  not  thought,  but  the  refined  sensuousness  of  a 
nature  keenly  alive  to  plastic  beauty,  educated  in  the 
schools  of  classical  and  Florentine  art,  and  gifted  with 
inexhaustible  facility  of  language,  is  the  dominant 
quality  of  Poliziano's  Italian  poetry.  The  same 
quality  is  found  in  his  Latin  and  Greek  verse — in  the 
plaintive  elegies  for  La  Bella  Simonetta  and  Albiera 
degli  Albizzi,  in  the  Viola  and  in  that  ode  In  puellam 
suam,1  which  is  the  Latin  sister  of  La  brunettina. 
The  Sylves  add  a  new  element  of  earnestness  to  his 
style;  for  if  Poliziano  felt  deep  and  passionate  emo- 
tion, it  was  for  Homer,  Virgil  and  the  poets  praised  in 
the  Nulricia,  while  the  Rusticus  condenses  in  one 
picture  of  marvelous  fullness  the  outgoings  of  genuine 
emotion  stimulated  by  his  love  of  the  country. 

Hanc,  o  ccelicolae  magni,  concedite  vitam ! 

Sic  mihi  delicias,  sic  blandimenta  laborum, 

Sic  faciles  date  semper  opes;  hac  improba  sunto 

Vota  tenus.    Nunquam  certe,  nunquam  ilia  precabor, 

Splendeat  ut  rutilo  frons  invidiosa  galero, 

Tergeminaque  gravis  surgat  mihi  mitra  corona. 

Mhat  is  the  heart-felt  prayer  of  Poliziano.  Give 
me  the  tranquil  scholar's  life  among  the  pleasures  of 

•  Praised  for  their  incomparable  sweetness  by  Scaliger,  and  trans 
lated  into  softest  Italian  by  Firenzuola 


424  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

the  fields;  my  books  for  serious  thought  in  studious 
hours;  the  woods  and  fields  for  recreation;  with 
moderate  wealth  well-gotten  without  toil ;  no  bishop's 
miter  or  triple  tiara  to  vex  my  brows.  It  is  the  same 
ideal  as  Alberti's.  From  this  background  of  the 
modest  rural  life  emerge  three  splendid  visions — the1 
Golden  Age,  when  all  was  plenitude  and  peace; 
Orpheus  of  the  dulcet  lyre,  evoking  harmony  from 
discord  in  man's  jarring  life;  and  Venus  rising  from 
the  waves  to  bless  the  world  with  beauty  felt  through 
art.  Such  was  the  programme  of  human  life  sketched 
by  the  representative  mind  of  his  century,  in  an  age 
when  the  Italians  were  summoned  to  do  battle  with 
France,  Germany  and  Spain  invasive  of  their  borders. 
Poliziano  died  before  the  great  catastrophe.  He 
sank  at  the  meridian  of  his  fame,  in  the  same  month 
nearly  as  Pico,  two  years  later  than  Lorenzo,  a  little 
earlier  than  Ficino,  in  the  year  1494,  so  fatal  to  his 
country,  the  date  that  marks  the  boundary  between 
two  ages  in  Italian  history. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

PULCI    AND     BOIARDO. 

The  Romantic  Epic — Its  Plebeian  Origin — The  Popular  Poet's  Standpoint 
— The  Pulci  Family — The  Carolingian  Cycle — Turpin — Chanson  dc 
Roland — Historical  Basis — Growth  of  the  Myth  of  Roland — Causes 
of  its  Popularity  in  Italy  —  Burlesque  Elements  —  The  Morgante 
Maggiore — Adventures  in  Paynimry — Roncesvalles — Episodes  intro- 
duced by  the  Poet — Sources  in  older  Poems — The  Treason  of  Gano 
— Pulci's  Characters — His  Artistic  Purpose — His  Levity  and  Humor 
— Margutte — Astarotte — Pulci's  bourgeois  Spirit — Boiardo — His  Life 
— Feudalism  in  Italy  —  Boiardo's  Humor  —  His  Enthusiasm  for 
Knighthood — His  Relation  to  Renaissance  Art — Plot  of  the  Orlando 
Innamorato — Angelica — Mechanism  of  the  Poem — Creation  of  Char- 
acters—  Orlando  and  Rinaldo  —  Ruggiero  —  Lesser  Heroes  —  The 
Women  —  Love — Friendship — Courtesy — Orlando  and  Agricane  at 
Albracca — Natural  Delineation  of  Passions — Speed  of  Narration — 
Style  of  Versification — Classical  and  Medieval  Legends — The  Pun- 
ishment of  Rinaldo — The -Tale  of  Narcissus — Treatment  of  Mythol- 
ogy— Treatment  of  Magic — Fate  of  the  Orlando  Innamorato. 

LORENZO  DE'  MEDICI  and  Angelo  Poliziano  reunited 
the  two  currents  of  Italian  literature,  plebeian  and 
cultivated,  by  giving  the  form  of  refined  art  to  popular 
lyrics  of  divers  kinds,  to  the  rustic  idyll,  and  to  the 
sacred  drama.  Another  member  of  the  Medicean 
circle,  Luigi  Pulci,  aided  the  same  work  of  restoration 
by  taking  up  the  rude  tales  of  the  Cantori  da  Piazza 
and  producing  the  first  romantic  poem  of  the  Re- 
naissance. 

Of  all  the  numerous  forms  of  literature,  three  seem 
to  have  been  specially  adapted  to  the  Italians  of  this 
period.  They  were  the  Novella,  the  Romantic  Epic. 


426  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

and  the  Idyll.  With  regard  to  the  Novella  and  the 
Idyll,  it  is  enough  in  this  place  to  say  that  we  may 
reckon  them  indigenous  to  modern  Italy.  They 
suited  the  temper  of  the  people  and  the  age;  the 
Novella  furnishing  the  fit  artistic  vehicle  for  Italian 
realism  and  objectivity;  the  Idyll  presenting  a  point 
of  contact  with  the  literature  of  antiquity,  and  ex- 
pressing that  calm  sensibility  to  natural  beauty  which 
was  so  marked  a  feature  of  the  national  character 
amid  the  distractions  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
Idyll  and  the  Novella  formed,  moreover,  the  most 
precious  portion  of  Boccaccio's  legacy. 

Concerning  the  Romantic  Epic  it  is  necessary  to 
speak  at  greater  length.  At  first  sight  the  material  of 
the  Carolingian  Cycle,  which  formed  the  basis  of  the 
most  considerable  narrative  poems  of  the  Renaissance, 
seems  uncongenial  to  the  Italians.  Feudalism  had 
never  taken  a  firm  hold  on  the  country.  Chivalry  was 
more  a  pastime  of  the  upper  classes,  more  consciously 
artificial  than  it  had  been  in  France  or  even  England. 
The  interest  of  the  Italians  in  the  Crusades  was  rather 
commercial  than  religious,  and  the  people  were  not 
stirred  to  their  center  by  the  impulse  to  recover  the 
Holy  Sepulcher.  The  enthusiasm  of  piety  which 
animated  the  Northern  myth  of  Charlemagne,  was  not 
characteristic  of  the  race  that  earlier  than  the  rest  of 
Europe  had  indulged  in  speculative  skepticism  and 
sarcastic  raillery;  nor  were  the  marvels  of  the  legend 
congenial  to  their  positive  and  practical  imagination, 
turned  ever  to  the  beauties  of  the  plastic  arts.  Charle- 
magne, again,  was  not  a  national  hero.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  great  foreign  epics,  which  had  been  trans- 


POPULAR    TREATMENT   OF  ROMANCE.  427 

ported  into  Italy  during  the  thirteenth  century,  would 
find  no  permanent  place  in  Southern  literature  after 
the  close  ot  the  fourteenth.  The  cultivated  classes  in 
their  eagerness  to  discover  and  appropriate  the  ancient 
authors  lost  sight  of  peer  and  paladin.  Even  Boc- 
caccio alluded  contemptuously  to  chivalrous  romance, 
as  fit  reading  only  for  idle  women ;  and  when  he 
attempted  an  epical  poem  in  octave  stanzas,  he  chose 
a  tale  of  ancient  Greece.  Still,  in  spite  of  these  ap- 
parent drawbacks,  in  spite  of  learned  scorn  and 
polished  indifference,  the  Carolingian  Cycle  had 
taken  a  firm  hold  upon  the  popular  fancy.  We  have 
seen  how  a  special  class  of  literary  craftsmen  repro- 
duced its  principal  episodes  in  prose  and  verse  for  the 
multitudes  gathered  on  the  squares  to  hear  their  reci- 
tations, or  for  readers  in  the  workshop  and  the  country 
farm.  Now,  in  the  renascence  of  the  native  literature, 
poets  of  the  highest  rank  were  destined  to  receive  the 
same  material  from  the  people  and  to  give  it  a  form 
appropriate  to  their  own  culture.  This  fact  must  not 
be  forgotten  by  the  student  of  Pulci,  Boiardo,  Berni, 
and  Ariosto.  The  romantic  epics  of  the  golden  age 
had  a  plebeian  origin ;  and  the  masters  of  verse  who 
devoted  their  best  energies  to  that  brilliant  series  of 
poems,  were  dealing  with  legends  which  had  taken 
shape  in  the  imagination  of  the  people,  before  they 
applied  their  own  inventive  faculties  to  the  task  of 
beautifying  them  with  art  unrivaled  for  splendor  and 
variety  of  fancy.  This,  and  this  alone,  explains  the 
anomalies  of  the  Italian  romantic  epic — the  mixture  of 
burlesque  with  seriousness,  the  irony  and  sarcasm 
alternating  with  gravity  and  pathos,  the  wealth  of 


428  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

comic  episodes,  the  interweaving  of  extraneous  inci- 
dents, the  antithesis  between  the  professed  importance 
of  the  subject-matter  and  the  spirit  of  the  poet  who 
plays  with  it  as  though  he  felt  its  puerility — all  the 
startling  contrasts,  in  a  word,  which  have  made  this 
glittering  Harlequin  of  art  in  the  Renaissance  so 
puzzling  to  modern  critics.  If  we  remember  that  the 
poets  of  the  sixteenth  century  adopted  their  subjects 
from  the  people,  finding  them  already  impregnated 
with  the  plebeian  instincts  of  improvisatori>  who  felt 
no  real  sympathy  with  knighthood,  and  whose  one  aim 
was  to  amuse  and  gratify  an  audience  eager  for  ex- 
citement; if  we  further  recollect  that  these  poets 
approached  their  own  task  in  the  same  spirit,  adding 
yet  another  element  of  irony  proper  to  men  who 
stood  aloof  and  laughed,  and  who  desired  to  entertain 
the  Courts  of  Italy  with  masterpieces  of  humor  and 
fantastic  beauty;  we  shall  succeed  in  comprehending  the 
peculiarities  of  their  productions. 

The  romances  of  Orlando  must  be  regarded  as 
works  of  pure  art,  wrought  by  courtly  singers  from  a 
previously  existing  popular  literature,  which  in  its  turn 
had  been  fashioned  from  the  Prankish  legends  to  suit 
the  tastes  of  a  non-chivalrous,  but  humorous  and 
marvel-loving  multitude.  In  passing  from  the  Song  of 
Roland  or  Turpin's  Chronicle  to  the  Orlando  Furioso 
we  can  trace  two  separate  processes  of  transmutation. 
By  the  earlier  process  the  materia  di  Francia  was 
adapted  to  the  Italian  people ;  by  the  second  the  new 
material  thus  obtained  was  reconstructed  for  the 
Italian  Courts.  The  final  product  is  a  masterpiece 
of  refined  art,  retaining  something  of  the  French 


ARTISTIC    TREATMENT   OF  ROMANCE.  4*9 

originals,  something  of  the  popular  Italian  rifacimento, 
but  superadding  the  wisdom,  the  irony,  and  the  poetry 
of  one  of  the  world's  brightest  geniuses.  We  might 
compare  the  growth  of  a  romantic  epic  of  the  sixteenth 
century  to  the  art  of  Calimala,  whereby  the  rough 
stuffs  of  Flanders  were  wrought  at  Florence  into  finer 
cloths,  and  the  finished  fabric  was  tinted  with  the 
choicest  dyes,  and  made  fit  for  a  king's  chamber. 

Hitherto  I  have  spoken  as  though  Pulci,  Boiardo, 
Ariosto,  Berni,  and  the  lesser  writers  of  romantic  epics 
could  be  classed  together  in  one  sentence.  The  justi 
fication  of  so  broad  a  treatment  at  the  outset  lies  in 
this,  that  their  relation  to  the  popular  romances  they 
rehandled  was  substantially  the  same.  But  it  will  be 
the  special  purpose  of  the  following  pages  to  point  out 
their  essential  differences,  not  only  as  poets,  but  alsc 
with  regard  to  the  spirit  in  which  they  viewed  then 
common  subject-matter. 

Boccaccio,  in  his  desire  to  fuse  the  classic  and  the 
medieval  modes  of  thought  and  style,  not  merely 
adapted  the  periods  of  Latin  to  Italian  prose,  but  also 
sought  to  treat  an  antique  subject  in  the  popular 
measure  of  the  octave  stanza.  His  Teseide  is  a  narra- 
tive poem  in  which  the  Greek  hero  plays  a  prominent 
part,  while  all  the  chiefs  of  Theban  and  Athenian 
legend  are  brought  upon  the  scene.  Yet  the  main 
motive  is  a  tale  of  love,  and  the  language  is  as  modern 
as  need  be  Writing  to  please  the  mistress  of  his  heart, 
and  emulous  of  epic  fame.  Boccaccio  rejected  the  usual 
apostrophes  and  envoys  of  the  Cantori  da  Bancay  and 
constructed  a  poem  divided  into  books.  Poliziano 
approached  the  problem  of  fusing  the  antique  and 


430  RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

modern  from  a  different  point  of  view.  He  adorned 
a  courtly  theme  of  his  own  day  with  phrases  and 
decorative  details  borrowed  from  the  classic  authors, 
presenting  in  a  series  of  brilliant  pictures  an  epitome 
of  ancient  art.  It  remained  for  Pulci  to  develop,  with- 
out classical  admixture,  the  elements  of  poetry  existing 
in  the  popular  Italian  romances.  The  Morgante 
Maggiore  is  therefore  more  thoroughly  and  purely 
Tuscan  than  any  work  of  equal  magnitude  that  had 
preceded  it.  This  is  its  great  merit,  and  this  gives  it 
a  place  apart  among  the  hybrid  productions  of  the 
Renaissance. 

The  Pulci  were  a  noble  family,  reduced  in  circum 
stances  and  attached  to  the  Casa  Medici  by  ties  ol 
political  and  domestic  dependency.  Bernardo,  the 
eldest  of  three  brothers,  distinguished  himself  in  litera 
ture  by  his  translations  of  Virgil's  Eclogues,  by  his 
elegies  on  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  by  a  Sacra  Rappresenta- 
zione  on  the  tale  of  Barlaam,  and  by  a  poem  on  the 
Passion  of  Christ  which  he  composed  at  the  instance  of 
a  devout  nun.  Luca  wrote  the  stanzas  on  the  Tour- 
nament of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  above  mentioned,1  and 
took  some  part  at  least  in  the  composition  of  an  obscure 
poem  called  the  Ciriffo  Calvaneo?  But  the  most 
famous  of  the  brothers  was  Luigi,  whose  correspon- 

1  See  p.  406. 

»  This  poem  relates  the  adventures  of  Ciriffo  and  II  Povero  Aweduto, 
bastards  of  two  noble  ladies,  and  gives  the  history  of  a  crusade  of  Louis 
against  the  Soldan  of  Egypt.  It  was  published  as  the  work,  as  far  as 
the  first  Book,  of  Luca  Pulci,  completed  and  restored  by  Bernardo 
Giambullari.  "  II  Ciriffo  Calvaneo,  diviso  in  iv.  Canti,  col  primo  Libro 
di  Luca  Pulci,  ed  il  resto  riformato  per  Bernardo  Giambullari "  (Roma, 
Mazzocchio,  1514).  Luigi  Pulci  claims  a  share  in  it,  if  not  the  whole 
in  the  Aforgante,  xxviii.  118,  129. 


POETS    OF    THE    PULCI  FAMILY.  431 

dence  with  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  proves  him  to  have 
been  a  kind  of  Court-poet  in  the  Palace  of  the  Via 
Larga,  while  the  sonnets  he  exchanged  with  Matteo 
Franco  breathe  Burchiello's  plebeian  spirit.1  He  had 
a  wild  fantastic  temperament,  inclining  to  bold  specu- 
lations on  religious  topics;  tinctured  with  curiosity  that 
took  the  form  of  magic  art;  bizarre  in  expression,  yet 
withal  so  purely  Florentine  that  his  prose  and  verse 
are  a  precious  mine  of  quattrocento  idioms  gathered 
from  the  jargon  of  the  streets  and  squares.  Of 
humanistic  culture  he  seems  to  have  possessed  but 
little.  Still  the  terms  of  familiar  intercourse  on  which 
he  lived  with  Angelo  Poliziano,  Matteo  Palmieri,  and 
Paolo  Toscanelli  enabled  him  to  gather  much  of  the 
learning  then  in  vogue.  The  theological  and  scientific 
speculations  of  the  age  are  transmitted  to  us  in  his 
comic  stanzas  with  a  vernacular  raciness  that  renders 
them  doubly  precious.2 

Before  engaging  with  the  Morgante  Maggiore,  it  is 
needful  to  inquire  into  the  source  of  this  and  all  the 
other  Italian  romantic  poems,  and  to  account  for  the 
fact  that  they  were  confined,  so  far  as  their  subject 

1  See  Letters  di  Luigi  Pulci  a  Lorenzo  II  Magnifico,  Lucca,  Giusti 
1868.  Sonetii  di  Matteo  Franco  f  Luigi  Pulci,  1759.  The  sonnets  are 
indescribably  scurrilous,  charged  with  Florentine  slang,  and  loaded  with 
the  filthiest  abuse.  The  point  of  humor  is  that  Franco  and  Pulci  under- 
took (it  is  said,  for  fun)  to  heap  scandals  on  each  other's  heads,  ransack- 
ing the  language  of  the  people  for  its  vilest  terms  of  invective.  If  they 
began  in  joke,  they  ended  in  earnest;  and  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  who  had 
a  low  taste  for  buffoonery,  enjoyed  the  scuffle  of  his  Court-fools.  It  was 
a  combat  of  humanists  transferred  from  the  arena  of  the  schools  to  the 
market-place,  where  two  men  of  parts  degraded  themselves  by  assum- 
ing the  character  of  coal-heavers. 

«  The  poetical  talents  of  th»  Pulci  family  were  hereditary.  Cellini 
tells  us  of  a  Luigi  of  that  name  who  improvised  upon  the  market-place 
of  Florence. 


432  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

went,  within  the  circle  of  the  Carolingian  epic.  In 
—  i  122  a  prose  history  in  monkish  Latin,  purporting  to  be 
the  Chronicle  of  the  last  years  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Great  written  by  Turpin,  Archbishop  of  Rheims, 
was  admitted  among  the  canonical  books  by  Calixtus  II., 
who  in  his  Bull  cursed  those  who  should  thenceforward 
listen  to  the  "  lying  songs  of  Jongleurs."  This  Chron- 
icle was  merely  a  sanctimonious  and  prosaic  version  of 
the  Songs  of  Roland  and  of  Roncesvalles.1  The  object 
of  the  scribe  who  compiled  it,  and  of  the  Pope  who 
canonized  it,  was  to  give  an  ecclesiastical  complexion 
to  the  martial  chants  which  already  possessed  the  ear 
of  the  public.2  Accordingly,  while  he  left  untouched 
the  tales  of  magic,  the  monstrous  marvels  and  the 
unchristian  ethics  of  the  elder  fable,  this  pseudo-Turpin 
interspersed  prayers,  confessions,  vows,  miracles,  homi- 
lies, and  pulpit  admonitions.  In  order  to  secure  veri- 
similitude for  his  narrative,  he  reversed  the  old  account 
of  Roncesvalles,  according  to  which  Turpin  perished 
on  the  field,  anathematized  all  previous  poets,  and  pre- 
tended that  his  Chronicle  was  written  by  the  hands 
of  the  Archbishop.3  What  he  effected  for  the  Song 
of  Roland,  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  did,  without  a  sacer 
dotal  bias,  for  the  romance  of  Arthur. 

1  Turpin's  Chronicle  consists  of  thirty-two  chapters,  relating  the  wars 
of  Charlemain  with  the  Spanish  Moors,  the  treason  of  Ganelon,  and 
Roland's  death  in  Roncesvalles.  The  pagan  knight,  Ferraguto,  and 
the  Christian  peers  are  mentioned  by  name,  proving  that  at  the  date 
of  its  compilation  the  whole  Carolingian  myth  was  tolerably  perfect  in 
the  popular  imagination. 

»  It  has  been  conjectured  by  M.  Ggnin,  editor  of  the  Chant  de  Ro- 
land, not  without  substantial  grounds,  that  Gui  de  Bourgogne,  bishop 
of  Vienne,  afterwards  Pope  Calixtus  II.,  was  himself  the  pseudo-Turpin 

1  See  Chanson  de  Roland,  line  804,  and  compare  Morg,  Magg.  xxvii. 
79- 


TURPIN  AND    THE    SONG    OF  ROLAND.  433 

We  possess  a  MS.  of  the  Chanson  de  Roland  in 
Norman  French.  It  was  discovered  in  the  Bodleian 
Library  and  published  first  in  1837  by  M.  Michel, 
afterwards  in  i85i  by  M.  Ge"nin.  The  date  of  the 
MS.  has  been  fixed  by  some  critics  as  early  as  the 
eleventh,  by  others  as  late  as  the  thirteenth,  century. 
Purporting  to  be  the  work  of  one  Turold,  its  most 
enthusiastic  admirers  claim  it  as  the  genuine  production 
of  The*roulde,  tutor  to  William  the  Conqueror,  which, 
after  passing  through  the  hands  of  Taillefer,  the 
knightly  bard  of  Senlac  field,  was  deposited  in  his  MS. 
chest  by  a  second  The"roulde,  abbot  of  Peterborough.1 
Be  that  as  it  may,  we  can  assume  that  the  Bodleian 
MS.  presents  the  ancient  battle-song  in  nearly  the 
same  form  as  when  the  Normans  followed  Taillefer  at 
Hastings,  and  heard  him  chanting  of  "  Charlemain  and 
Roland  and  Oliver  who  died  in  Roncesvalles."  This 
song  reverberated  throughout  medieval  Europe. 
Poggio  in  the  Facetice  compares  a  man  who  weeps 
over  the  fall  of  Rome,  to  one  who  in  Milan  shed  tears 
over  Roland's  death  at  Roncesvalles.  Dante  may 
have  heard  it  on  the  lips  of  the  Cantores  Francige- 
narum  in  Lombard  towns,  or  in  the  halls  of  Fosdinovo 
above  the  Tyrrhene  Sea;  for  he  writes  with  an  energy 
of  style  scarcely  inspired  by  the  pseudo-Turpin: 

Dopo  la  dolorosa  rotta,  quando 
Carlo  Magno  perdfc  la  santa  gesta, 
Non  sonb  si  terribilmente  Orlando. 

Orlando  and  Oliver  (or  Ogier)  are  carved  upon  the  fagade 
of  the  Duomo  at  Verona — Dietrich's  town  of  Bern, 

>  See  Ludlow's  Popular  Epics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  vol.  i.  p.  412 
and  M.  Gtfnin's  Introduction  to  the  Chanson  dg  Roland,  Paris,  1851. 


434  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

where  Northern  traditions  of  chivalry  long  lingered.1 
Like  the  Spanish  legend  of  the  Cid,  or  the  climax  of 
the  Niebelungenlied,  this  Song  of  Roland,  in  dignity 
and  strength  of  style,  in  tragic  heroism  and  passionate 
simplicity,  is  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  a  Canto  of  the 
Iliad.  Like  all  medieval  romantic  poetry,  it  is  but  a 
fragment — the  portion  of  a  cycle  never  wrought  by 
intervention  of  a  Homer  into  epical  completeness. 
But  its  superiority  over  Turpin's  Chronicle  in  all  the 
qualities  that  could  inspire  a  singer  is  immeasurable. 

Two  questions  have  now  to  be  asked.  What  his- 
torical basis  can  be  found  for  the  Carolingian  myth  ? 
and  how  did  it  happen  that  the  Italians  preferred  this 
legend  of  French  Paladins  to  any  other  of  the  feudal 
romances?  The  history  of  Charlemagne  and  his  peers — 
of  Roland,  Oliver,  Ogier,  Turpin,  Ganilo  the  traitor, 
Pinabel,  Marsilius  the  Moorish  king  of  Spain,  and  all 
the  rest,  of  whom  we  read  in  the  Norman  Song,  and 
who  receive  numerous  additions  from  the  Italian 
romancers — must  not  be  sought  in  Eginhard.  It  is  a 
Myth.  But  like  all  myths,  it  has  some  nucleus  of 
reality,  round  which  have  crystallized  the  enthusiasms 
of  a  semi-barbarous  age,  the  passionate  memories  of 
the  people  looking  back  to  bygone  greatness,  the 
glowing  fancies  of  poets  intent  on  visions  of  the  future. 
This  nucleus  of  fact  is  little  more  than  the  name  of 

1  See  Ge"nin  (pp.  cit.  pp.  xxix.,  xxx.)  for  the  traces  of  the  Roland 
myth  in  the  Pyrenees,  at  Rolandseck,  in  England,  and  at  Verona;  also 
for  gigantic  statues  in  Germany  called  Rolands  (ib.  pp.  xxi.  xxii.).  At 
Spello,  a  little  town  of  Umbria  between  Assist  and  Foligno,  the  people 
of  the  place  showed  me  a  dint  in  their  ancient  town  wall,  about  breast- 
high,  whicn  passes  for  a  mark  made  by  Orlando's  knee.  There  is 
learned  tradition  of  a  phallic  monument  named  after  Roland  in  thai 
place;  but  I  could  find  no  trace  of  it  in  local  memory. 


MYTH    OF    CHARLEMAGNE.  435 

Charles  the  Prankish  Emperor.  All  the  legends  of 
the  cycle  represent  him  as  conducting  a  crusade, 
defeating  the  Saracens  in  mighty  battles,  besieged  by 
them  in  Paris,  betrayed  by  his  own  subject  Ganilo, 
and  bereft  of  Jiis  noblest  paladins  in  the  Pass  of 
Roncesvalles.  History  knows  nothing  of  these  events. 
Nor  can  history  account  for  the  traditional  character  of 
the  Emperor,  who  is  feeble,  credulous,  browbeaten  by 
lawless  vassals,  incapable  of  strenuous  action,  and  yet 
respected  as  the  conqueror  of  the  world  and  the 
anointed  of  the  Lord.1  It  is  therefore  clear  that  the 
myth  has  blent  together  divers  incongruous  elements, 
and  that  •  the  spirit  of  the  crusades  has  been  at  work, 
giving  a  kind  of  unity  to  scarce  remembered  acts  of  the 
chief  of  Christendom.  We  hear  from  Eginhard  that 
Charlemagne  in  778  advanced  as  far  as  Saragossa  into 
Spain,  and  during  his  retreat  had  his  rearguard  cut  off 
by  the  Basques.2  Among  the  slain  was  "  Roland,  prefect 
of  the  Breton  Marches."  We  read  again  in  Eginhard 
(anno  824)  how  Louis  le  Debonair  lost  two  of  his 
counts,  who  were  returning  from  Spain  through  the 
Pass  of  Roncesvalles.  Furthermore,  the  Merovingian 
Chronicles  tell  us  of  a  Pyrenean  battle  in  the  days  of 
Dagobert,  when  twelve  Prankish  chiefs  were  sur- 
rounded in  those  passes  and  slain.  These  are  sufficient 
data  to  account  for  the  Pass  of  Roncesvalles  becoming 
a  valley  dolorous,  the  vale  of  the  great  woe.  For 

1  The  Song  of  Roland  does  not  give  this  portrait  of  Charlemagne's 
dotage.  But  it  is  an  integral  part  of  the  Italian  romances,  a  fixed  point 
in  all  rifacimenti  of  the  pseudo-Turpin. 

»  Ludlow  (op.  tit.  i.  358)  translates  the  Basque  Song  of  Atta-bi?ar 
which  relates  to  some  destruction  of  chivalrous  forces  by  the  Pyrenean 
mountaineers. 


436  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

the  crusading  exploits  of  Charlemagne  we  have  to 
look  to  his  predecessor,  Charles  Martel,  who  defeated 
the  Saracens  at  Tours  and  stemmed  the  tide  of  Mussul- 
man invasion.  His  successors,  the  feeble  monarchs  of 
the  Prankish  line,  several  of  whom  bore  the  name  of 
Charles,  explain  the  transformation  of  the  Emperor 
into  a  vacillating  monarch,  infirm  of  purpose  and  in- 
capable of  keeping  his  peers  in  order;  for  the  distin- 
guishing surnames  of  history  are  later  additions,  and 
Chronicles,  though  written,  were  not  popularly  read. 
The  bard,  therefore,  mixed  his  materials  without  care 
for  criticism,  and  the  myth  produced  a  hybrid  Charle- 
magne composed  of  many  royal  Karls.  As  for  the 
traitor  Gano,  we  hear  of  Lupus,  Duke  of  Gascony, 
who  dealt  treasonably  with  Charlemagne,  and  of  one 
Ganilo,  Ganelon,  or  Wenelon,  Archbishop  of  Sens, 
who  played  the  same  part  toward  Charles  the  Bald  in 
864. l  This  portion  of  the  myth  may  possibly  be  re- 
ferred to  these  dim  facts.  Yet  it  would  be  wiser  not  to 
insist  upon  them;  for  the  endeavor  to  rationalize  an 
entire  legend  is  always  hazardous,  and  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  a  traitor  was  needed  for  the  fight  of  Ronces- 
valles  no  less  than  Mordred  for  the  death  of  Arthur 
in  the  plain  of  Glastonbury.  To  explain  the  legen- 
dary siege  of  Paris  by  the  Saracens,  so  important  an 
incident  in  the  Italian  romances,  it  has  been  ingeniously 
remarked  that,  though  the  Moors  never  menaced  the 
French  capital,  the  Normans  did  so  repeatedly,  while 
both  Saracens  and  Normans  were  Pagans.2  It  may  also 

1  See  G«nm  (op.  cit.  pp.  xxv.-xxviii.). 

*  Introduction  to  Panizzi's  edition  of  the  Orlando  Innamorato  and 
Orlando  Furioso  (London,  Pickering,  1830),  vol.  i.  pp.  126-128. 


ITALIAN   PREFERENCE    FOR    THIS    MYTH.  437 

be  remembered  that  Saracens  had  pillaged  Rome,  and 
the  Saracen  forays  were  a  common  incident  of  Italian 
experience.  The  gathering  of  great  armies  from  the 
far  East  and  the  incursions  of  hideous  barbarian  hordes, 
which  form  an  integral  element  of  Boiardo's  and 
Ariosto's  scheme,  can  be  referred  to  the  memory  of 
Tartar,  Hun,  and  Turk;  while  the  episodes  of  Chris- 
tian knights  enamored  of  Pagan  damsels  are  incidents 
drawn  from  actual  history  in  the  intercourse  of  Italy 
with  the  Levant.  Allowing  for  this  slight  framework 
of  fact,  but  not  pressing  even  the  few  points  that  have 
been  gathered  by  antiquarian  research,  it  may  be 
briefly  said  that  the  bulk  of  the  Carolingian  romance, 
with  its  numerous  subordinate  legends  of  knights  and 
ladies,  is  purely  mythical. 

In  the  next  place  we  have  to  consider  what  led  the 
Italians  to  select  the  romances  of  Charlemagne  for 
special  development  rather  than  those  of  Arthur,  with 
which  they  were  no  less  familiar.1  We  have  seen  that 
on  the  first  introduction  of  the  materia  di  Francia  into 
Italy,  the  Arthurian  Cycle  became  the  property  of  the 
nobles,  who  found  in  it  a  mirror  of  the  feudal  manners 
they  affected,  whereas  the  people  listened  to  Chansons 
de  Geste  upon  the  market-place.2  When,  therefore, 

1  See  Dante,  Inf.  xxxii.  61,  v.  67,  v.  128.  Galeotto,  Lancelot's  go- 
between  with  Guinevere,  gave  his  name  to  a  pimp  in  Italy,  as  Pandarus 
to  a  pander  in  England.  Boccaccio's  Novelliere  was  called  //  Principe 
Galeotto.  Pe'rarch  in  the  Trionfi  and  Boccaccio  in  the  Amoroso,  Vis- 
ione  make  frequent  references  to  the  knights  of  the  Round  Table.  The 
latter  in  his  Corbaccio  mentions  the  tale  of  Tristram  as  a  favorite  book 
with  idle  women.  The  Fiammetta  might  be  quoted  with  the  same  ob- 
ject of  proving  its  wide-spread  popularity.  The  lyrics  of  Folgore  da 
San  Gemignano  and  other  trecentisti  would  furnish  many  illustrative 
allusions. 

«  See  above,  p.  17, 


438  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

the  polite  poets  of  the  fifteenth  century  adopted  the 
romantic  epic  from  the  popular  rhymers,  they  found 
a  mass  of  Carolingian  tales  in  vogue,  to  which  they 
had  themselves  from  infancy  been  used.  But  this  pre- 
ference of  the  multitude  for  Charlemagne  and  Roland 
requires  further  explanation.  It  must  be  remarked  in 
the  first  place  that  the  Empire  exercised  a  fascination 
over  the  Italians  in  the  middle  ages,  paralleled  by  no 
other  power  except  the  Papacy.  They  regarded  it  as 
their  own,  as  their  glory  in  the  past,  as  their  pride  in 
the  future,  if  only  the  inheritor  of  the  Caesars  would  do 
his  duty  and  rule  the  world  from  Rome  with  equal 
justice.  The  pedigree  of  the  Christian  Emperors  from 
Constantine  to  Charles  the  Great  formed  an  integral 
part  of  the  Carolingian  romance  as  it  took  form  in 
Italy.1  It  was  something  for  the  Italians  that  Charles 
had  been  crowned  at  Rome,  a  ceremony  from  time  to 
time  repeated  by  his  German  successors  during  the 
centuries  which  made  his  legend  famous.  Nor,  though 
the  people  were  but  little  influenced  by  the  crusading 
fanaticism,  was  it  of  no  importance  that  in  the  person 
of  this  Emperor  Christendom  had  been  imperiled  by  the 
infidels,  and  Christendom  through  him  had  triumphed. 
The  Chronicle  of  Turpin,  again,  had  received  authori 
tative  sanction.  Add  to  it  as  the  romancers  chose, 
attribute  nonsense  to  the  Archbishop  as  they  pleased, 
they  always  relied,  in  show  at  least,  on  his  canonical 

>  The  Reali  di  Francia  sets  forth  this  legendary  genealogy  at  great 
length,  and  stops  short  at  the  coronation  of  Charles  in  Rome  and  the 
discovery  of  Roland.  Considering  the  dryness  of  its  subject-matter,  it  is 
significant  that  this  should  have  survived  all  the  prose  romances  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  We  may  ascribe  the  fact  perhaps  to  the  tenacious 
Italian  devotion  to  the  Imperial  idea. 


ROMAN  FEELING    FOR    ORLANDO.  439 

"\ 

veracity.  Pulci,  Bello,  Boiardo,  and  Ariosto  appeal  to 
his  authority  with  mock  seriousness;  and  even  the 
burlesque  Berni,  while  turning  Turpin  into  ridicule, 
adopts  the  style: 

Perche  egli  era  Arcivescovo,  bisogna 
Credergli,  ancor  che  dica  la  menzogna.1 

The  fashion  lasted  till  the  days  of  Folengo  and  Forti- 
guerra.  It  may  further  be  mentioned  that  Orlando 
at  an  early  date  had  been  made  a  Roman  by  the 
popular  Italian  mythologists.  They  said  that  he  was 
born  at  Sutri,  and  that  Oliver  was  the  son  of  the 
Roman  prefect  for  the  Pope.  The  sentiment  of  the 
people  for  this  strange  Senator  Romanus  expressed 
itself  touchingly  and  pithily  in  his  supposed  epitaph : 
"  One  God,  One  Rome,  One  Roland." 2  Orlando  was 
so  rooted  in  the  popular  consciousness  as  a  hero,  that 
to  have  substituted  for  him  another  epical  character 
would  have  been  impossible. 

When  we  further  investigate  the  naturalization  of 
Orlando  in  Italy,  we  find  that  all  the  romantic  poems 
written  on  his  legend  inclined  to  the  burlesque.  The 
chivalrous  element  of  love  which  pervades  the  Arthurian 
Cycle,  had  been  extracted  and  treated  after  their  own 

1  Or/.  Inn.  Rifac.  i.  18,  26.  Niccolb  da  Padova  in  the  thirteenth 
century  quoted  Turpin  as  his  authority  for  the  history  of  Charlemagne 
which  he  composed  in  Northern  French.  This  proves  the  antiquity  of 
the  custom.  See  Bartoli  Storia  della  Lett.  It.  vol.  ii.  p.  44.  To  believe 
in  Turpin  was  not,  however,  an  article  of  faith.  Thus  Bello  in  the 
Afambriano,  c.  viii.: 

Ma  poi  che  'I  non  e  articolo  di  fede, 

Tenete  quella  parte  che  vi  piace, 

Che  1'  autor  libramente  vel  concede. 

'  "  Un  Dio,  uno  Orlando,  e  una  Roma."  Morg.  Magg.  xxvii.  220 
Compare  this  with  Arthur's  "  Flos  regum  Arthurus,  rex  quondam 
rexque  futurus." 


440  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

fashion  by  the  lyrists  of  the  fourteenth  century.  That 
was  no  immediate  concern  of  the  people,  nor  had  the  citi- 
zens any  sympathy  with  the  chivalry  of  arms.  To  deal  as 
solemnly  with  medieval  romance  as  the  Northern  bards 
had  done,  was  quite  beside  the  purpose  of  the  improvi- 
satori  who  refashioned  the  Chansons  de  Geste  for  Italian 
townsfolk.  When,  therefore,  Pulci  undertook  to  amuse 
Lucrezia  Tornabuoni,  the  mother  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici 
with  a  tale  of  Roland,  he  found  his  material  already 
stripped  of  epical  sobriety ;  nor  was  it  hard  for  him  to 
handle  his  theme  in  the  spirit  of  Boccaccio,  bent  on 
exhausting  every  motive  of  amusement  which  it  might 
suggest.  He  assumed  the  tone  of  a  street-singer,  open- 
ing each  canto  with  the  customary  invocation  to 
Madonna  or  a  paraphrase  of  some  Church  collect,  and 
dismissing  his  audience  at  the  close  with  grateful  thanks 
or  brief  good  wishes.  But  Pulci  was  no  mere  Canta- 
storie.  The  popular  style  served  but  for  a  cloak  to 
cover  his  subtle-witted  satire  and  his  mocking  levity. 
Sarcastic  Tuscan  humor  keeps  up  an  obbligato  accom- 
paniment throughout  the  poem.  Sometimes  this 
humor  is  in  harmony  with  the  plebeian  spirit  of  the 
old  Italian  romances ;  sometimes  it  turns  aside  and 
treats  it  as  a  theme  of  ridicule.  In  reading  the  Mor 
gante,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  written,  canto 
by  canto,  to  be  recited  in  the  Palace  of  the  Via  Larga, 
at  the  table  where  Poliziano  and  Ficino  gathered  with 
Michelangelo  Buonarroti  and  Cristoforo  Landino. 
Whatever  topics  may  from  time  to  time  have  occupied 
that  brilliant  circle,  were  reflected  in  its  stanzas ;  and 
this  alone  suffices  to  account  for  its  tender  episodes  and 
its  burlesque  extravagances,  for  the  satiric  picture  of 


PULCrS   ATTITUDE.  441 

Margutte  and  the  serious  discourses  of  the  devil 
Astarotte.  The  external  looseness  of  construction  and 
the  intellectual  unity  of  the  poem,  are  both  attributable  to 
these  circumstances.  Passing  by  rapid  transitions  from 
grave  to  gay,  from  pathos  to  cynicism,  from  theological 
speculations  to  ribaldry,  it  is  at  one  and  the  same  time 
a  mirror  of  the  popular  taste  which  suggested  the  form, 
and  also  of  the  courtly  wits  who  listened  to  it  laughing. 
The  Morgante  is  no  naive  production  of  a  simple  age, 
but  the  artistic  plaything  of  a  cultivated  and  critical 
society,  entertaining  its  leisure  with  old-world  stories, 
accepting  some  for  their  beauty's  sake  in  seriousness, 
and  turning  others  into  nonsense  for  pure  mirth. 

A  careful  study  of  the  Morgante  Maggiore  reveals 
to  the  critic  three  separate  strains  of  style.  To  begin 
with,  it  is  clear  that  we  are  dealing  with  two  poems 
fused  in  one— '-the  first  ending  with  the  twenty-third 
canto,  the  second  consisting  of  the  last  five  cantos. 
Between  these  two  divisions  a  considerable  period  of 
time  is  supposed  to  have  elapsed.  The  first  poem 
consists  of  a  series  of  romantic  adventures  in  strange 
countries,  whither  Orlando,  Uliviero,  Rinaldo  and 
Astolfo  have  been  driven  by  the  craft  of  Gano,  and 
where  they  fight  giants,  liberate  ladies,  and  fall  in  love 
with  Pagan  damsels,  after  the  jovial  fashion  of  knights 
errant.  The  second  assumes  a  more  heroic  tone,  and 
tells  in  truly  thrilling  verse  the  tale  of  Roncesvalles. 
But  over  and  above  this  double  material,  different  in 
matter  and  in  manner,  we  trace  throughout  the  whole 
romance  a  third  element,  which  seems  to  be  more 
essentially  the  poet's  own  than  either  his  fantastic  tissue 
of  adventures  or  his  serious  narrative  of  Roland's  death. 


44  J  XMNAISSANCM  IN  ITALY. 

This  third  element  consists  of  half-ironical  half-sober 
dissertations,  reflective  digressions,  and  brilliant  inter- 
polated incidents,  among  which  we  have  to  reckon  the 
splendid  episodes  of  Astarotte  and  Margutte.  So  much 
was  clear  to  my  mind  when  I  first  read  the  Morgante^ 
and  attempted  to  comprehend  the  difficulties  it  pre- 
sented to  critics  like  Ginguene"  and  Hallam.  Since 
then  the  truth  of  this  view  has  been  substantiated  by 
the  eminent  Italian  scholar,  Pio  Rajna,  who  has  proved 
that  the  Morgante  is  the  rifacimento  of  two  earlier 
popular  poems,  the  first  existing  in  MS.  in  the  Lauren- 
tian  library,  the  second  entitled  La  Spagna.*  Pulci 
availed  himself  freely  of  his  popular  models,  at  times 
repeating  the  old  stanzas  with  no  alteration,  but  oftener 
rehandling  them  and  adding  to  their  comic  spirit,  and 
interpolating  passages  of  his  own  invention.  Since  the 
two  originals  differed  in  character,  vhis  rifacimentc 
retained  their  divers  peculiarities,  notwithstanding  those 
master- touches  which  betray  the  same  hand  in  both  of 
its  main  sections.  But  the  most  precious .  part  of  the 
poem  remains  Pulci's  own.v  Nothing  can  deprive  him 
of  Margutte  and  Astarotte;  nor  without  his  clever 
transmutation  of  the  old  material  would  the  bulk  of 
the  Morgante  Maggiore  deserve  more  attention  than 
many  similar  romances  buried  in  condign  oblivion. 
Between  the  two  parts  we  may  notice  a  considerable 
difference  of  literary  merit.  The  second  and  shorter  is 
by  far  the  finer  in  poetic  quality,  earnestness,  and 
power  of  treatment.  The  first  is  tedious  to  read.  The 
second  inthralls  and  carries  us  along.2 

i  See  Pmpugnatore  (Anni  ii.,  Hi.,  iv.).     La,  Sfagna  was  itself  two 
popular  compilations. 

*  This  is  only  strictly  true  of  Cantos  xxiv.,  xxv.,  xxvi.,  xxvii.    The  last 


SOURCES    AND    PLOT   OF    THE    MORGANTE.  443 

The  poem  takes  its  title  from  the  comic  hero 
Morgante,  a  giant  captured  and  converted  by  Orlando 
in  the  first  Canto.1  He  dies,  however  in  the  twentieth, 
and  the  narrative  proceeds  with  no  interruption.  If 
we  seek  for  epical  unity,  in  a  romance  so  loosely  put 
together  from  so  many  divers  sources,  we  can  find  it 
in  the  treason  of  Gano.  The  action  turns  decisively 
and  frequently  upon  this  single  point,  returns  to  it  from 
time  to  time  for  fresh  motives,  and  reaches  its  conclu- 
sion in  the  execution  of  the  traitor  after  the  great  deed 
of  crime  has  been  accomplished  in  the  valley  dolorous. 
An  Italian  of  the  fifteenth  century  could  not  have  chosen 
a  motive  more  suited  to  the  temper  and  experience  of 
his  age,  when  conspiracies  like  that  of  the  Pazzi  at 
Florence  and  the  Baglioni  at  Perugia  were  frightfully 
freqent,  and  when  the  successful  massacre  of  Sini- 
gaglia  made  Cesare  Borgia  the  hero  of  historical 
romance.  H  tradimento,  il  traditore,  the  kiss  of  Judas, 
the  simile  of  the  fox,  recur  with  fatal  resonance  through 
all  the  Cantos  of  the  poem.  The  style  assumes  a 
rugged  grandeur  of  tragic  realism,  not  unworthy  of  poets 
of  the  stamp  of  our  own  Webster  or  Marston,  in  the 
passage  which  describes  the  tempest  by  the  well  at 
Saragossa,  where  Gano  met  Marsilio  to  plan  theii 
fraud,  and  where  the  locust-tree  let  fall  its  fruit  upon 


Canto,  in  fact  the  whole  poem  after  the  execution  of  Marsilio,  is  a  dull 
historical  epitome,  brightened  by  Pulci's  personal  explanations  at  the 
ending. 

1  It  is  called  Morgante  Maggiore  because  the  pan  relating  to  him 
was  published  separately  under  the  title  of  Morgante.  This  character 
Pulci  derived  from  the  MS.  poem  called  by  Signor  Rajna  the  Orlando 
to  distinguish  it.  In  the  year  1500  we  find  one  of  the  Baglioni  called 
Morgante,  which  proves  perhaps  the  popularity  of  this  giant. 


444  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

the  traitor  s  head.1  The  Morgante  is,  in  truth,  the  epic 
of  treason,  and  the  character  of  Gano,  as  an  accom- 
plished yet  not  utterly  abandoned  Judas,  is  admir- 
ably sustained  throughout.  The  powerful  impression 
of  his  perversity  is  heightened  by  contrast  with  the 
loyalty  of  his  son  Baldovino.  In  the  fight  at  Ronces- 
valles  Baldovino  carries  a  mantle  given  to  Gano  by 
the  Saracen  king,  without  knowing  for  what  purpose 
his  father  made  him  wear  it ;  and  wherever  he  charges 
through  the  press  of  men,  the  foes  avoid  him. 
Orlando  learns  that  he  is  protected  by  this  ensign  of 
fraud,  and  accuses  him  of  partaking  in  Gano's  treason. 
Then  the  youth  flings  the  cloak  from  his  shoulders, 
and  plunges  into  the  fight  with  an  indignant  repudia- 
tion of  this  shame  upon  his  lips.  The  scene  is  not 
unworthy  of  the  ttiad; 2  and  his  last  words,  as  he  falls 

1  Canto  xxv.  73-78.    The  locust-tree,  according  to  the  tradition  of  the 
South,  served  Judas  when  he  hanged  himself.    Northern  fancy  reserved 
this  honor  for  the  elder,  not  perhaps  without  a  poetic  sense  of  the  outcast 
existence  of  the  plant  and  its  worthlessness  for  any  practical  use.    On  the 
same  locust-tree  Marsilio  was  afterwards  suspended  (c.  xxvii.  267).    The 
description  of  the  blasted  pleasure -garden  in  the  latter  passage  is  also 
rery  striking.    For  the  translation  of  these  passages  see  Appendix. 
*  xxvii.  5-7  and  47.    Note  in  particular  (translated  in  Appendix): 
Rispose  Baldovin:  Se  il  padre  mio 

Ci  ha  qui  condotti  come  traditore, 

Sf  io  posso  oggi  campar,  pel  nostro  Iddio, 

Con  questa  spada  passer6gli  il  core ! 

Ma  traditore,  Orlando,  non  sou  io, 

Ch'  io  t'  ho  seguito  con  perfetto  amore; 

Non  mi  pot  res  ti  dir  maggiore  ingiuria  I 

Poi  si  straccib  la  vesta  con  gran  furia, 
E  disse:  Io  torner6  nella  battaglia, 

Poi  che  tu  m'  hai  per  traditore  scorto; 

Io  non  son  traditor,  se  Dio  mi  vaglia, 

Non  mi  vedrai  piu  oggi  se  non  morto ! 

E  inverse  1'  oste  de*  Pagan  si  scaglia, 

Dicendo  sempre:  Tu  m'  hai  fatto  torto! 

Orlando  si  pentea  d'  aver  ci6  detto 

Chd  disperato  vide  il  giovinetto. 


GANO'S   TREASON;    CHARACTER-DRAWING.  445 

pierced  in  the  breast  with  two  lances,  Or  non  son  io  pito. 
traditore  /  are  dramatic. 

Pulci  deserves  credit  for  strong  delineation  of 
character.  Through  all  the  apish  tricks  and  fantastic 
arabesque-work  of  his  style,  the  chief  personages  retain 
firmly-marked  types.  Never  since  the  Chanson  de 
Roland  was  first  sung,  has  a  more  heroic  portrait  of 
Orlando,  the  God-fearing  knight,  obedient  to  his  liege- 
lord,  serene  in  his  courage  and  gentle  in  his  strength, 
courteous,  pious  and  affectionate,  been  painted.1  Close 
adherence  to  the  popular  conception  of  Orlando's 
character  here  stood  Pulci  in  good  stead;  nor  was  he 
hampered  with  the  difficulties  which  beset  Boiardc 
and  Ariosto,  when  they  showed  the  champion  of 
Christianity  subdued  to  madness  and  to  love.  Thus 
one  work  at  least  of  the  Renaissance  maintained  tor 
the  Italians  an  ideal  of  chivalrous  heroism,  first  con- 
ceived by  Franco-Norman  bards,  and  afterwards 
transmitted  through  the  fancy  of  the  people,  who  are 
ever  ready  to  discern  and  to  preserve  the  lineaments  of 
greatness.  Oliver  the  true  friend  and  doughty  warrior, 
Rinaldo  the  fiery  foe  and  reckless  lover,  to  whom  the 
press  of  men  was  Paradise,2  and  Malagigi  the  magician, 
are  drawn  with  no  less  skill.  Charles  is  such  as  the 
traditions  of  the  myth  and  the  requirements  of  the  plot 

1  Of  all  the  Paladins  only  Orlando  is  uniformly  courteous  to  Charle- 
magne. When  Rinaldo  dethrones  the  Emperor  and  flies  to  his  cousin 
(c.  xi.  114),  Orlando  makes  him  return  to  his  obedience  (ib.  127).  See, 
too,  c.  xxv.  100: 

Or  oltre  in  Roncisvalle  Orlando  va, 

Per  obbedir,  com'  e'  fef  sempre,  Carlo. 
126: 

Rinaldo,  quando  e*  fu  nella  battaglia, 

Gli  parve  esser  in  ciel  tra'  cherubini 

Tra  suoni  e  canti. 


446  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

obliged  Pulci  to  make  him.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  feeble 
ness  which  exposes  him  to  the  treasonable  arts  of 
Gano,  he  is  not  deficient  in  a  certain  nobility.  In  the 
conduct  of  these  characters,  amid  the  windings  of  the 
poet's  freakish  fancy,  we  trace  the  solidity  of  his  plan, 
his  faculty  for  earnest  art.  But  should  there  still  be 
found  critics  who,  after  a  careful  study  of  Gano, 
Orlando,  Uliviero,  Rinaldo  and  Carlo,  think  that  Pulci 
meant  his  poem  for  a  mere  burlesque,  this  opinion 
cannot  but  be  shaken  by  a  perusal  of  the  twenty-fifth, 
twenty-sixth  and  twenty-seventh  Cantos.  The  refusal 
of  Orlando  to  blow  his  horn : 

Non  sonerb  perchft  e'  m'  aiuti  Carlo, 
Che  per  vilta  mai  non  volli  sonarlo: 

his  address  to  the  knights  when  rushing  into  despe- 
rate battle  at  impossible  odds1;  the  scene  of  his 
death,  so  tender  in  its  pathos,  so  quaint  in  its  piety; 
the  agony  of  Charles  when  he  comes,  too  late,  to  find 
him  slain,  and  receives  his  sword  from  the  Paladin's 
dead  hands;  these  passages  must  surely  be  enough  to 
convince  the  most  incredulous  of  doctrinaires. 

It   has   been    customary   to    explain    the    apparent 
contradictions    of    the    Morgante    Maggiore — Pulci's 

1  Canto  xxvi.  24-39.    These  two  touches,  out  of  many  that  are  noble 

might  be  chosen: 

Stasera  in  paradiso  cenerete; 
Come  disse  quel  Greco  anticamente 
I.ieto  a'  suoi  gia,  ma  disse — Nello  inferno: 

and: 

La  morte  e  da  temere,  o  la  partita, 
Quando  1*  anima  e  1  corpo  muore  insieme; 
Ma  se  da  cosa  finita  a  infinita 
Si  va  qui  m  ciel  fra  tante  diademe, 
Questo  £  cambiar  la  vita  a  miglior  vita. 


PULCrS   PROFANITY.  447 

brusque  transitions  from  piety  to  ribaldry,  from  pathos 
to  satire — by  reference  to  the  circumstances  of  Flo- 
rence at  the  date  of  its  composition.  The  republic  was 
at  war  with  Sixtus  IV.,  who  had  taken  part  in  the 
Pazzi  conspiracy.  To  his  Bull  of  excommunication 
the  Signoria  had  retorted  by  terming  it  "  maledictam 
maledictionem  damnatissimi  judicis,"  and  had  de- 
scribed the  Pope  himself  as  "  delirum  senem,"  "  leno 
matris  suse,  adulterorum  minister,  diaboli  vicarius/' 
It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  even  an  orthodox 
Christian  should  be  tender  toward  the  vices  of  the 
clergy  or  careful  in  guarding  his  religious  utterances  at 
such  a  moment.  Yet  we  need  not  go  far  afield  to 
account  for  Pulci's  profanity.  The  Italians  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived,  were  freethinkers  without  ceas- 
ing to  be  Catholics.  To  begin  a  Canto  with  a  prayer, 
and  to  end  it  with  speculations  on  the  destiny  of  the 
soul  after  death,  was  consistent  with  their  intellectual 
temper.  The  schools  and  private  coteries  of  Florence 
were  the  arena  in  which  Platonism  and  Averroism 
waged  war  with  orthodoxy,  where  questions  of  free- 
will and  creation,  the  relation  of  man  to  God,  and  the 
essence  of  the  human  spirit,  were  being  discussed  with 
a  philosophic  indifference  and  warmth  of  curiosity  that 
prepared  the  way  for  Pomponazzi's  materialism.  Criti- 
cism, the  modern  Hercules,  was  already  in  its  cradle, 
strangling  the  serpents  of  sacerdotal  authority:  and 
as  yet  the  Inquisition  had  not  become  a  power  of  terror; 
the  Council  of  Trent  and  the  Spanish  tyranny  had  not 
turned  Italians  into  trembling  bigots  or  sleek  hypo- 
crites. Externally  they  remained  tenacious  of  theii 
old  beliefs;  and  from  the  ooint  of  view  of  art  at  least 


448  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

they  were  desirous  of  adhering  to  tradition.  Foi 
Pulci  to  have  celebrated  Orlando  without  assuming  the 
customary  style  of  the  cantastorie,  would  have  been 
beside  his  purpose.  Therefore,  the  mixture  of  magic, 
theology,  impiety,  speculation  and  religious  fervor 
which  perplexes  a  reader  of  the  present  day  in  the 
Morgante,  corresponded  to  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
educated  majority  at  Pulci's  date.  On  the  border- 
land between  the  middle  ages  and  the  modern  world 
the  keen  Italian  intellect  loved  to  entertain  itself  with 
a  perpetual  perhaps,  impartially  including  in  the  sphere 
of  doubt  old  dogmas  and  novel  hypotheses,  and  finding 
satisfaction  in  an  insecurity  that  flattered  it  with  the 
sense  of  disengagement  from  formulae.1  With  some 
minds  this  volatile  questioning  was  serious;  with 
others  it  assumed  a  Rabelaisian  joviality.  Pulci 
ranked  with  those  who  made  the  problems  of  the 
world  material  for  humorous  debate. 

A  few  instances  of  Pulci's  peculiar  levity  might  be 
selected  from  the  last  Cantos  of  the  Morgante,  where 
no  one  can  maintain  that  his  intention  was  burlesque. 
We  have  just  heard  from  the  minstrel's  lips  how  Ro- 
land died,  recommending  his  soul  to  God  and  deliver- 
ing his  glove  in  sign  of  feudal  fealty  to  Gabriel.  The 
sound  of  his  horn  has  startled  Charlemagne  from  the 

'  This  pervasive  doubt  finds  its  noblest  and  deepest  expression  in 
some  lines  spoken  by  Orlando  just  before  engaging  in  the  fight  at  Ron- 
cesvalles  (xxvi.  31): 

Tutte  cose  mortal  vanno  ad  un  segno; 

Mentre  1*  una  sormonta,  un'  altra  cade: 

Cosi  fia  forse  di  Cristianitade. 

This  is  said  not  from  the  hero's  but  the  author's  point  of  view.  Pom  • 
ponazzi  afterwards  gave  philosophical  utterance  to  the  same  disbcliel 
in  the  permanence  of  Christianity. 


PULCrS   HUMOR.  449 

sleep  of  false  tranquillity,  and  the  Emperor  is  on  his 
way  to  Roncesvalles.  But  time  is  short.  He  prays 
Christ  that  as  of  old  for  Joshua,  so  now  for  him  in  his 
sore  need,  the  sun  may  be  stayed  and  the  day  be  pro- 
longed1: 

O  crucifisso,  il  qual,  gia  sendo  in  croce, 

Oscurasti  quel  sol  contra  natura; 

lo  ti  priego,  Signor,  con  umil  voce 

Infin  ch'  io  giunga  in  quella  valle  oscura, 

Che  tu  raffreni  il  suo  corso  veloce. 

The  prayer  is  worthy,  in  its  solemn  tone,  of  this  exor- 
dium; and  the  desired  effect  soon  follows.  But  now 
Pulci  changes  his  note  from  grave  to  gay2: 

E  disse:  Pazienzia,  come  Giobbe; 
Or  oltre  in  Roncisvalle  andar  si  vuole. 
Che  come  savio  il  partito  conobbe, 
Per  non  tenere  in  disagio  pi&  il  sole. 

A  few  lines  further  he  describes  the  carnage  in  the 
dolorous  valley,  and  finds  this  comic  phrase  to  ex- 
press the  confusion  of  the  field3: 

Chi  mostra  sanguinosa  la  percossa, 

Chi  il  capo  avea  quattro  braccia  discosto, 

Da  non  trovarli  in  Giusaffd  si  tosto. 

Pulci's  grotesque  humor  gives  an  air  of  false  absur- 
dity to  many  incidents  which,  together  with  his  hearers, 
he  undoubtedly  took  in  good  faith.  During  the 
slaughter  of  the  Christians  he  wishes  to  impress  the 
audience  with  the  multitude  of  souls  who  crowded  into 
Paradise.  S.  Peter  is  tired  to  death  with  opening  the 
door  for  them  and  deafened  with  their  jubilations4: 

'  Canto  xxvii.  172.  *  Ibid.  196.  s  ibid.  198. 

«  Canto  xxvi.  91. 


450  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

E  cosi  in  ciel  si  faceva  apparccchio 
D*  ambrosia  e  nettar  con  celeste  manna, 
E  perche  Pietro  alia  porta  e  pur  vecchio, 
Credo  che  molto  quel  giorno  s'  affanna; 
E  converri  ch'  egli  abbi  buono  orecchio, 
Tanto  gridavan  quelle  anime  Osanna 
,  Ch'  eran  portate  dagli  angeli  in  cielo; 

Sicche  la  barba  gli  sudava  e  '1  pelo. 

In  the  same  spirit  is  the  picture  of  the  fiends  seated 
like  hawks  upon  the  bell-towers  of  a  little  chapel,  wait- 
ing to  pounce  upon  the  souls  of  Pagans.1 

Sometimes    a    flash    of  purely    Bernesque    humor 
appears  in  Pulci;  as  when  he  says  that  the  Saracens: 

Bestemmiavano  Dio  divotamente, 

or  when  Oliver,  after  a  pathetic  love-lament,  complains 
that  it  is  impossible : 

Celar  per  certo  1'  amore  e  la  tossa, 

According  to  modern  notions  his  jokes  not  unfre- 
quently  savor  of  profanity.  Rinaldo  and  Ricciardetto 
are  feasting  upon  ortolans,  and  give  this  punning 
reason  for  their  excellence2: 

Cioe  che  Cristo  a  Maddalena  apparv 
In  ortolan,  che  buon  sozio  gli  parve. 

\ 

On  the  same  occasion  Rinaldo  is  so  pleased  with  his 
fare  that  he  exclaims : 

Quest i  mi  paion  miracoli; 
Facciam  qui  sei  non  che  tre  tabernacoli. 

Such  expressions  flash  forth  from  mere  Florentine 
sense  of  fun  in  passages  by  no  means  deliberately 
comic. 

«  Canto  nrvt  89.  «  Canto  xxv.  217,  218. 


MARGUTTE.  451 

The  most  diverting  character  of  the  Morgante  is 
Margutte,  an  eccentric  heteroclite  creature,  the  proto- 
type of  Folengo's  Cingar  and  Rabelais'  Panurge,  whom 
the  giant  met  upon  his  wanderings  and  adopted  for 
a  comrade.  It  has  been  supposed  with  some  reason 
that  Pulci  here  intended  to  satirize  the  Greeks  who 
flocked  to  Florence  after  the  fall  of  Constantinople, 
and  that  either  Marullo,  the  personal  enemy  of 
Poliziano,  or  Demetrius  Chalcondylas,  his  rival  in 
erudition,  sat  for  Margutte's  portrait.  The  character 
of  the  rogue,  described  by  himself  in  thirty  stanzas  of 
fantastic  humor,  contains  a  complete  epitome  of  the 
abuse  which  the  scholars  of  those  days  used  to  vomit 
forth  in  their  reciprocal  invectives.1  Part  of  the 
comic  effect  produced  by  his  speech  is  due  to  this 
self-attribution  of  qualities  which  supplied  the  arsenals 
of  humanistic  combatants  with  poisoned  arrows.  But 
Margutte  has  far  more  than  a  merely  illustrative  or 
temporary  value.  He  is  the  first  finished  humoristic 
portrait  sketched  in  modern  literature,  the  first 
broadly-conceived  and  jovially- executed  Rabelaisian 
study.  Though  it  is  very  improbable  that  Pulci  had 
any  knowledge  of  Aristophanes,  though  he  died  eight 
years  or  thereabouts  before  the  Cure"  of  Meudon 
was  born,  his  Margutte  is  cqusin-german  of  the  Sau- 
sage-seller and  Panurge.2  Margutte  takes  an  impish 
pride  in  reckoning  up  his  villanies  and  vices.  When 

1  Canto  xviii.  114,  et  seq. 

*  I  have  placed  in  the  Appendix  a  rough  plaster  cast  rather  than  a 
true  copy  of  Margutte's  admirable  comic  autobiography.  My  stanzas 
cannot  pretend  to  exactitude  of  rendering  or  interpretation.  The  Mor- 
gante has  hitherto  been  very  imperfectly  edited;  and  there  are  many 
passages  in  this  speech  which  would,  I  believe,  puzzle  a  good  Floren- 
tine scholar,  and  which,  it  is  probable,  I  have  misread. 


45*  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Morgante  asks  him  whether  he  believes  in  Christ  01 
Appollino,  he  replies : 

A  dirtel  tosto, 

10  non  credo  pid  al  nero  ch'  all*  azzurro, 

Ma  nel  cappone,  o  lesso,  o  vuogli  arrosto  .  .  . 

£  credo  nella  torta  e  nel  tortello, 

L*  una  e  la  madre,  e  1'  altro  e  il  suo  figliuolo; 

11  vero  paternostro  e  il  fegatello, 

£  possono  esser  tre,  e  due,  ed  un  solo, 
£  diriva  dal  fegato  almen  quello. 

He  explains  his  disengagement  from  all  creeds  by  re 
ferring  to  his  parentage : 

Che  nato  son  d'  una  monaca  greca, 

£  d'  un  papasso  in  Bursia  la  in  Turchia. 

Beginning  life  by  murdering  his  father,  he  next  set  out 
to  seek  adventures  in  the  world : 

£  per  compagni  ne  menai  con  meco 
Tutt*  i  peccati  o  di  turco  o  di  greco, 
Anzi  quanti  ne  son  giu  nell'  inferno: 
lo  n*  ho  settanta  e  sette  de'  mortali, 
Che  non  mi  lascian  mai  la  state  o  1  verno; 
Pensa  quanti  io  n*  ho  poi  de'  veniali ! 

Margutte's  humor  consists  in  the  baboon-like  self-con- 
tentment of  his  infamous  confessions,  and  in  the  effect 
they  produce  upon  Morgante,  who  feels  that  he  has 
found  in  him  a  finished  gentleman.  After  amusing  his 
audience  with  this  puppet  for  a  while,  Pulci  flings  him 
aside.  Margutte,  like  Pietro  Aretino,  dies  at  last  of 
immoderate  laughter.1 

Another  of  Pulci's  own  creations  is  Astarotte,  the 
proud  and  courteous  fiend,  summoned  by  Malagigi 
to  bring  Rinaldo  from  Egypt  to  Roncesvalles.  This 

>  Canto  xix.  148. 


ASTAROTTE.  453 

feat  he  accomplishes  in  a  few  hours  by  entering  the 
body  of  the  horse  Baiardo.  The  journey  consists  of 
a  series  of  splendid  leaps,  across  lakes,  rivers,  moun- 
tains, seas  and  cities;  and  when  the  paladin  hungers, 
Astarotte  spreads  a  table  for  him  in  the  wilderness  or 
introduces  him  invisible  into  the  company  of  queens 
at  banquet  in  fair  Saragossa.  The  humor  and  the 
fancy  of  this  magic  journey  are  both  of  a  high  order.1 
Yet  Astarotte  is  made  to  serve  a  second  purpose. 
Into  his  mouth  Pulci  places  all  his  theological  specula- 
tions, and  makes  him  reason  learnedly  like  Mephisto- 
philis: 

Of  Providence,  foreknowledge,  will,  and  fate, 
Fixed  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute. 

He  is  introduced  in  these  lines 2 : 

Uno  spirto  chiamato  e  Astarotte, 
Molto  savio,  terribil,  molto  fero, 
Questo  si  sta  giu  nell'  infernal  grotte; 
Non  6  spirto  folletto,  egli  e  piti  nero. 

Of  his  noble  descent  from  the  highest  of  created  in- 
telligences Astarotte  is  well  aware 3 : 

Io  era  Serafin  de'  principali  .  .  . 
lo  fui  gia  Serafin  piO  di  te  degno. 

He  is  in  earnest  to  prove  that  courtesy  exists  in 
HelH: 

i  Cantos  xxv.  xxvi. 

*  xxv.  119.  This  distinction  between  the  fallen  angels  and  the  spirit* 
follitti  deserves  to  be  noticed.  The  latter  were  light  and  tricksy  spirits, 
on  whom  not  even  a  magician  could  depend.  Marsilio  sent  two  of  them 
in  a  magic  mirror  to  Charlemagne  (xxv.  92),  and  Astarotte  warned  Mal- 
agigi  expressly  against  their  vanity  (xxv.  160,  161).  ¥a.\r\es,feuxfollets. 
and  the  lying  spirits  of  modern  spiritualists  seem  to  be  of  this  family 
Translations  from  Astarotte's  dialogue  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix. 
*  xxv.  159,  208.  *  xxv.  161;  xxvi.  83. 


454  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Chft  gentilezza  e  bene  anche  in  inferno  .  .  . 
Non  creder,  nello  inferno  anche  fra  noi 
Gentilezza  non  sia. 

When  Malagigi  questions  him  concerning  divine  fore- 
knowledge and  his  own  state  in  Hell,  he  replies  with 
a  complete  theory  of  sin  and  punishment  founded  upon 
the  doctrine  of  freewill.1  The  angels  sinned  with 
knowledge.  Therefore  for  them  there  is  no  redemp- 
tion. Adam  sinned  in  ignorance.  Therefore  there  is 
hope  for  all  men,  and  a  probability  of  final  restitution 
for  the  whole  human  race 2 : 

Forse  che  '1  vero  dopo  lungo  errore 
Adorerete  tutti  di  concordia. 
E  troverete  ognun  misericordia. 

Astarotte's  own  torment  in  Hell  causes  him  bitter 
anguish;  but  he  recognizes  the  justice  of  God;  and 
knowing  that  the  sentence  of  damnation  cannot  be 
canceled,  he  is  too  courageous  to  complain.  When 
Rinaldo  offers  to  intercede  for  him,  he  answers s : 

II  buon  volere  accetto; 
Per  noi  fien  sempre  perdute  le  chiavi, 
Maesta  lesa,  infinite  e  il  difetto: 

0  felici  Cristian,  voi  par  che  lavi 
Una  lacrima  sol  col  pugno  al  petto, 
E  dir;  Signer,  tibi  soli  peccavi; 

Noi  peccammo  una  volta,  e  in  sempiterno 
Rilegati  siam  tutti  nello  inferno. 

Che  pur  se  dopo  un  milione  e  mille 
Di  secol  noi  sperassim  rivedere 
Di  quell*  Amor  le  minime  faville, 
Ancor  sarebbe  ogni  peso  leggiere: 
Ma  che  bisogna  far  queste  postille  ? 
Se  non  si  pub,  non  si  debbe  volere; 
Ond'  io  ti  priego,  che  tu  sia  contento 
Che  noi  mutiamo  altro  ragionamento. 

1  Canto  xxv.  141-158;  translation  in  Appendix. 
•  Ibid.  233.  3  ibid.  284. 


PHILOSOPHICAL    DIGRESSIONS.  455 

There  is  great  refinement  in  this  momentary  sadness 
of  Astarotte,  followed  by  his  return  to  more  cheerful 
topics.  He  is  the  Italian  counterpart  of  Marlowe's 
fiend,  that  melancholy  demon  of  the  North,  who 
tempts  his  victim  by  the  fascination  of  mere  horror.1 
Like  Mephistophilis,  again,  Astarotte  is  ready  to 
satisfy  the  curiosity  of  mortals,  and  condescends  to 
amuse  them  with  elfish  tricks.2  He  explains  to 
Rinaldo  that  it  is  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  there 
are  no  inhabited  lands  beyond  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar. 
The  earth,  he  says,  is  round,  and  can  be  circumnavi- 
gated; and  cities  full  of  people,  worshiping  our  planets 
and  our  sun,  are  found  in  the  antipodes.  Hercules 
ought  to  blush  for  having  fixed  his  pillars  where  he 
did.3  The  good  understanding  established  between 

1  Doctor  Faustus,  act  i.  Scene  with  Mephistophilis  in  a  Francis- 
can's habit. 

*  The  scene  in  the  banquet-hall  at  Saragossa  (xxv.  292-305)  is  very 
similar  to  some  of  the  burlesque  scenes  in  Doctor  Faustus. 

3  xxv.  228-231.  Astarotte's  discourses  upon  theology  and  physical 
geography  are  so  learned  that  this  part  of  the  Morgante  was  by  Tasso 
ascribed  to  Ficino.  It  is  not  improbable  that  Pulci  derived  some  of  the 
ideas  from  Ficino,  but  the  style  is  entirely  his  own.  The  sonnets  he 
exchanged  with  Franco  prove,  moreover,  that  he  was  familiar  with  the 
treatment  of  grave  themes  in  a  burlesque  style.  In  acknowledging  the 
help  of  Poliziano  he  is  quite  frank  (xxv.  115-117,  169;  xxviii.  138-149). 
What  that  help  exactly  was,  we  do  not  know.  But  there  is  nothing 
whatever  to  justify  the  tradition  that  Poliziano  was  the  real  author  of 
the  Morgante.  Probably  he  directed  Pulci's  reading;  and  I  think  it  not 
impossible,  judging  by  one  line  in  Canto  xxv.  (stanza  115,  line  4),  that  he 
directed  Pulci's  attention  to  the  second  of  the  two  poems  out  of  which 
the  narrative  was  wrought.  If  we  were  to  ascribe  all  the  passages  in 
the  Morgante  that  display  curious  knowledge  to  Pulci's  friends,  we  might 
claim  the  discourse  on  the  antipodes  for  Toscanelli  and  the  debates  on 
the  angelic  nature  for  Palmieri.  Such  criticism  is,  however,  far-fetched 
and  laboriously  hypothetical.  Pulci  lived  in  an  intellectual  atmosphere 
highly  charged  with  speculation  of  all  kinds,  and  his  poem  reflected  the 
opinion  of  his  age.  His  own  methods  of  composition  and  the  relation  in 
which  he  stood  to  other  poets  of  the  age  are  explained  in  two  passages 


456  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

Astarotte  and  Rinaldo  on  their  journey  is  one  of 
the  prettiest  incidents  of  this  strange  poem.  When 
they  part,  the  fiend  and  the  paladin  have  become  firm 
friends.  Astarotte  vows  henceforth  to  serve  Rinaldo 
for  love;  and  Rinaldo  promises  to  free  him  from 
Malagigi's  power.1 

Pulci  dealt  with  the  Carolingian  Cycle  in  what  may 
be  termed  a  bourgeois  spirit.  Whether  humorous  or 
earnest,  he  maintained  the  tone  of  Florentine  society: 
and  his  Morgante  reflects  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the 
Medicean  circle  at  the  date  of  its  composition.  The 
second  great  poem  on  the  same  group  of  legends, 
Boiardo's  Orlando  Innamorato,  transports  us  into  a 
very  different  social  and  intellectual  atmosphere,  The 
highborn  Count  of  Scandiano,  reciting  his  cantos  in  the 
huge  square  castle  surrounded  by  its  moat,  which 
still  survives  to  speak  of  medieval  Italy  in  the  midst 
of  Ferrara,  had  but  little  in  common  with  Luigi  Pulci, 
whose  Tuscan  fun  and  satire  amused  the  merchant- 
princes  of  the  Via  Larga.  The  value  of  the  Orlando 
Innamorato  for  the  student  of  Italian  development  is 
principally  this,  that  it  is  the  most  purely  chivalrous 
poem  of  the  Renaissance.  Composed  before  the 

of  the  Morgante  (xxv.  117,  xxviii.  138-149),  where  he  disclaims  all  share 
of  humanistic  erudition,  and  expresses  his  indifference  to  the  solemn 
academies  of  the  learned.     See  translation  in  Appendix. 
1  xxvi  82-38.     We  may  specially  note  these  phrases: 

Astarotte,  e'  mi  duole 
II  tuo  partir,  quanto  fussi  fratello; 
E  nell'  inferno  ti  credo  che  sia 
Gentilezza,  amicizia  e  cortesia. 

Che  di  servirti  non  mi  fia  fatica; 
E  basta  solo  Astarotte  tu  dica, 
Ed  io  ti  sentirb  sin  dello  inferno. 


MATTEO    MARIA    BOIAKDO.  457 

French  invasion,  and  while  the  classical  Revival  was 
still  unaccomplished,  we  find  in  it  an  echo  of  an  earlier 
semi-feudal  civility.  Unlike  the  other  literary  per- 
formances of  that  age,  which  were  produced  for  the 
most  part  by  professional  humanists,  it  was  the  work  of 
a  nobleman  to  whom  feats  of  arms  and  the  chase  were 
familiar,  who  disdained  the  common  folk  {popolaccio, 
canaglia,  as  he  always  calls  them),  and  whose  ideal 
both  of  life  and  of  art  was  contained  in  this  couplet !  : 

E  raccontare  il  pregio  e  '1  grande  onore 
Che  donan  1'  armi  giunte  con  1*  amore. 

Matteo  Maria  Boiardo  was  almost  an  exact  con- 
temporary of  Pulci.  He  was  born  about  1434  at  his 
hereditary  fief  of  Scandiano,  a  village  seven  miles  from 
Reggio,  at  the  foot  of  the  Apennines,  celebrated  for 
its  excellent  vineyards.  His  mother  was  Lucia  Strozzi, 
a  member  of  the  Ferrarese  house,  connected  by  de- 
scent with  the  Strozzi  of  Florence.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-eight  he  married  Taddea  Gonzaga,  daughter  of 
the  Count  of  Novellara.  He  lived  until  1494,  when 
he  died  at  the  same  time  as  Pico  and  Poliziano,  in  the 
year  of  Charles  VIII.'s  invasion,  two  years  after  the 
death  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  and  four  years  before 
Ficino.  These  dates  are  not  unimportant  as  fixing  the 
exact  epoch  of  Boiardo's  literary  activity.  At  the 
Court  of  Ferrara,  where  the  Count  of  Scandiano  en 
joyed  the  friendship  of  Duke  Borso  and  Duke  Ercole, 
this  bard  of  chivalry  held  a  position  worthy  of  his 
noble  rank  and  his  great  talents.  The  princes  of  the 
House  of  Este  employed  him  as  embassador  in  diplo- 
matic missions  of  high  trust  and  honor.  He  also 

'  Book  II.  canto  viH.  I.    All  references  will  be  made  to  Paniui's 
of  the  Orlando  Innamorato,  London    Pickering,  1830. 


458  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

administered  for  them  the  government  of  Reggio  and 
Modena,  their  two  chief  subject  cities.  As  a  ruler,  he 
was  celebrated  for  his  clemency  and  for  his  indiffer- 
ence to  legal  formalities.  An  enemy,  Panciroli,  wrote 
of  him:  "  He  was  a  man  of  excessive  kindness,  more 
fit  for  writing  poems  than  for  punishing  crimes."  He 
is  even  reported  to  have  held  that  no  offense  deserved 
capital  punishment — an  opinion  which  at  that  period 
could  only  have  been  seriously  entertained  in  Italy, 
and  which  even  there  was  strangely  at  variance  with 
the  temper  of  the  petty  tyrants.  Well  versed  in  Greek 
and  Latin  literature,  he  translated  Herodotus,  parts  of 
Xenophon,  the  Golden  Ass  of  Apuleius,  and  the  Ass 
of  Lucian  into  Italian.  He  also  versified  Lucian's 
Timon  for  the  stage,  and  wrote  Latin  poems  of  fair 
merit.  His  lyrics  addressed  to  Antonia  Caprara  prove 
that,  like  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  he  was  capable  of  fol- 
lowing the  path  of  Petrarch  without  falling  into 
Petrarchistic  mannerism.1  But  his  literary  fame  de- 
pends less  upon  these  minor  works  than  on  the 
Orlando  Innamorato,  a  masterpiece  of  inventive  genius, 
which  furnished  Ariosto  with  the  theme  of  the  Orlando 
Furioso.  Without  the  Innamorato  the  Furioso  is 
meaningless.  The  handling  and  structure  of  the  ro- 
,  mance,  the  characters  of  the  heroes  and  heroines,  the 
conception  of  Love  and  Arms  as  the  double  theme  of 
romantic  poetry,  the  interpolation  of  novelle  in  the 

1  Sonetti  e  Canzone  [sic]  del  poeta  clarissimo  Matteo  Maria  Boiardo 
Conte  di  Scandiano,  Milano,  1845.  The  descriptions  of  natural  beauty, 
especially  of  daybreak  and  the  morning  star,  of  dewy  meadows,  and  of 
flowers,  in  which  these  lyrics  abound,  are  very  charming  and  at  all 
ooints  worthy  of  the  fresh  delightful  inspiration  of  Boiardo's  epic  verse. 
Nor  are  they  deficient  in  metrical  subtlety;  notice  especially  the  intricate 
rhyming  structure  of  a  long  Canto,  pp.  44-49. 


BOI ARDORS   LIFE    AND    SPIRIT.  459 

manner  of  Boccaccio,  and  the  magic  machinery  by 
which  the  poem  is  conducted,  are  due  to  the  origin- 
ality of  Boiardo.  Ariosto  adopted  his  plot,  continued 
the  story  where  he  left  it,  and  brought  it  to  a  close:  so 
that,  taken  together,  both  poems  form  one  gigantic 
narrative,  of  about  100,000  lines,  which  has  for  its 
main  subject  the  love  and  the  marriage  of  Ruggiero 
and  Bradamante,  mythical  progenitors  of  the  Estensi. 
Yet  because  the  style  of  Boiardo  is  rough  and  provin- 
cial, while  that  of  Ariosto  is  by  all  consent  "  divine," 
Boiardo  has  been  almost  forgotten  by  posterity. 
(  Chivahy  at  no  time  took  firm  root  in  Italy,  where 
the  first  act  of  the  Communes  upon  their  achievement 
of  independence  had  been  to  suppress  feudalism  by 
forcing  the  nobles  to  reside  as  burghers  within  their 
walls.  The  true  centers  of  national  vitality  were  the 
towns.  Here  the  Latin  race  assimilated  to  itself  the 
Teutonic  elements  which  might,  if  left  to  flourish  in 
the  country,  have  given  a  different  direction  to  Italian 
development.  During  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  the  immense  extension  of  mercantile  activity, 
the  formation  of  tyrannies,  the  secular  importance  of 
the  Papacy,  and  the  absorption  of  the  cultivated 
classes  in  humanistic  studies,  removed  the  people  ever 
further  from  feudal  traditions.  Even  the  new  system 
of  warfare,  whereby  the  scions  of  noble  families  took 
pay  from  citizens  and  priests  for  the  conduct  of  mili- 
tary enterprises,  tended  to  destroy  the  stronghold  of 
chivalrous  feeling  in  a  nation  that  grew  to  regard  the 
profession  of  arms  as  another  branch  of  commerce. 
Still  Italy  could  not  wholly  separate  herself  from  the 
rest  of  Europe,  and  there  remained  provinces  where  a 


460  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

kind  of  semi-feudalism  flourished.  The  most  important 
of  these  undoubtedly  was  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  sub- 
ject to  alternate  influence  from  France  and  Spain,  and 
governed  by  monarchs  at  frequent  warfare  with  their 
barons.  The  second  was  Ferrara,  where  the  House  of 
Este  had  maintained  unbroken  lordship  from  the 
period  when  still  the  Empire  was  a  power  in  Italy. 
Here  the  ancient  Lombard  traditions  of  chivalry,  the 
customs  of  the  Marca  Amorosa,  and  the  literature  of 
the  troubadours  still  lingered.1  Externally  at  least, 
the  manners  of  the  Court  were  feudal,  however  far 
removed  its  princes  may  have  been  in  spirit  from  the 
ideal  of  knighthood.  In  Ferrara,  therefore,  more  than 
in  Florence  and  Venice,  those  cities  of  financiers  and 
traders,  could  the  romance  of  chivalry  be  seriously 
treated  by  a  poet  who  admired  the  knightly  virtues, 
and  looked  back  upon  the  days  of  Arthur  and  of 
Roland  as  a  golden  age  of  honor,  far  removed  but 
real.  While  the  humanists  of  Florence  indulged  their 
fancy  with  dreams  of  Virgil's  Saturnian  reign,  the 
baron  of  Ferrara  refashioned  a  visionary  world  from 
the  wrecks  of  old  romance.2 

Boiardo  did  not  disdain  to  assume  the  style  of  a 
minstrel  addressing  his  courtly  audience  with  compli- 
ments and  conges  at  the  beginning  and  ending  of  each 
canto.  The  first  opens  with  these  words: 

Signori  e  cavalieri  che  v*  adunati 
Per  odir  cose  dilettose  e  nuove, 
State  attenti,  quieti,  ed  ascoltati 
La  bella  istoria  che  '1  mio  canto  muove. 

i  See  above,  p.  15. 

*  See  the  exordium  to  the  second  Book,  where  it  appears  that  the 
gentle  poet  caressed  a  vain  hope  that  the  peace  of  Italy  in  the  second 
naif  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  destined  to  revive  chivalry. 


HIS   CONCEPTION  OF  CHIVALRY.  461 

But  his  spirit  is  always  knightly,  and  he  refrains  from 
the  quaint  pietism  of  Pulci's  preambles.  He  is  no 
mere  jongleur  or  Cantatore  da  Banca,  but  a  new  Sir 
Tristram,  celebrating  in  heroic  verse  the  valorous 
deeds  and  amorous  emotions  of  which  he  had  himself 
partaken.  Nor  does  he,  like  Ariosto,  appear  before 
us  as  a  courtier  accomplished  in  the  arts  of  flattery,  or 
as  a  man  of  letters  anxious  above  all  things  to  refine 
his  style.  Neither  the  Court-life  of  Italy  nor  the 
humanism  of  the  revival  had  destroyed  in  him  the 
spirit  of  old-world  freedom  and  noble  courtesy.  At 
the  same  time  he  was  so  far  imbued  with  the  culture 
of  the  Renaissance  as  to  appreciate  the  value  of  poetic 
unity  and  to  combine  certain  elements  of  classic  learn- 
ing with  the  material  of  romance.  Setting  out  with 
the  aim  of  connecting  all  the  Prankish  legends  in  one 
poem,  he  made  Orlando  his  hero;  but  he  perceived 
that  the  element  of  love,  which  added  so  great  a 
charm  to  the  Arthurian  Cycle,  had  hitherto  been 
neglected  by  the  minstrels  of  Charlemagne.  He  there- 
fore resolved  to  tell  a  new  tale  of  the  mighty  Roland ; 
and  the  originality  of  his  poem  consisted  in  the  fact 
that  he  treated  the  material  of  the  Chansons  de  Geste 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Breton  legends.1  Turpin,  he 
asserts  with  a  grave  irony,  had  hidden  away  the  secret 
of  Orlando's  love;  but  he  will  unfold  the  truth,  be- 
lieving that  no  knight  was  ever  the  less  noble  for  his 
love.  Accordingly  the  passion  of  Orlando  for  "  the 
fairest  of  her  sex,  Angelica,"  like  the  wrath  of  Achilles 
in  the  Iliad,  is  the  mainspring  of  Boiardo's  poem.  To 

'  See  the  opening  of  Book  II.  Canto  xviii.  where  Boiardo  compares 
the  Courts  of  Arthur  and  of  Charlemagne. 


463  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

his  genius  we  owe  the  creation  of  that  fascinating 
princess  of  the  East,  as  well  as  the  invention  of  the 
fountains  of  Cupid  and  Merlin,  which  cause  the  alter- 
nate loves  and  hates  of  his  heroes  and  heroines — the 
whole  of  that  closely-woven  mesh  of  sentiment  in 
which  the  adventures  and  the  warlike  achievements  of 
Paladins  and  Saracens  alike  are  involved. 

In  dealing  with  his  subject  Boiardo  is  serious — -as 
serious,  that  is  to  say,  as  a  writer  of  romance  can  be.1 
His  belief  in  chivalry  itself  is  earnest,  though  the 
presentation  of  knightly  prowess  runs  jnto  intentional 
extravagance.  A  dash  of  Italian  merriment  mingles 
with  his  enthusiasm;  but  he  has  none  of  Pulci's 
skeptical  satiric  humor,  none  of  Ariosto's  all-per- 
vasive irony.  The  second  thoughts  of  the  burlesque 
poet  or  of  the  humorous  philosopher  do  not  cross  the 
warp  of  his  conception,  and  his  exaggerations  are 
romantic.  Such  a  poem  as  the  Orlando  Innamorato 
could  not  have  been  planned  or  executed  in  Italy  at 
any  other  period  or  under  any  other  circumstances. 
A  few  years  after  Boiardo's  death  Italy  was  plunged 
into  the  wars  that  led  to  her  enslavement.  Charles  V. 
was  born  and  Luther  was  beginning  to  shake  Germany. 
The  forces  of  the  Renaissance  were  in  full  operation 
destroying  the  faiths  and  fervors  of  the  medieval 

1  The  acute  and  learned  critic  Pio  Rajna,  whose  two  massive  works 
of  scholarlike  research,  I Reali  di  Francia  (Bologna,  1872),  and  Le  Fonti 
deir  Orlando  Furioso  (Firenze,  1876),  have  thrown  a  flood  of  light  upon 
Chivalrous  Romance  literature  in  Italy,  is  at  pains  to  prove  that  the 
Orlando  Innamorato  contains  a  vein  of  conscious  humor.  See  Le  Fonti, 
etc.,  pp.  24-27.  I  agree  with  him  that  Boiardo  treated  his  subject  play- 
fully. But  it  must  be  remembered  that  he  was  far  from  wishing  tc 
indulge  a  secret  sarcasm  like  Ariosto,  or  to  make  open  fun  of  chivalry 
like  Fortiguerra. 


yOYOUSNESS    OF  HIS    ORLANDO.  463 

world,  closing  the  old  aeon  with  laughter  and  lamenta- 
tion, raising  new  ideals  as  yet  imperfectly  apprehended. 
Meanwhile  Boiardo,  whose  life  coincided  with  the  final 
period  of  Italian  independence,  uttered  the  last  note  of 
the  bygone  age.  His  poem,  chivalrous,  free,  joyous, 
with  not  one  stain  of  Ariosto's  servility  or  of  Tasso's 
melancholy,  corresponded  to  a  brief  and  passing 
moment  in  the  evolution  of  the  national  art.  In  the 
pure  and  vivid  beauty  which  distinguish  it,  the  sun- 
set of  chivalry  and  the  sunrise  of  modern  culture  blend 
their  colors,  as  in  some  far  northern  twilight  of  mid- 
summer night.  Joyousness  pervades  its  cantos  and  is 
elemental  to  its  inspiration — the  joy  of  open  nature,  of 
sensual  though  steadfast  love,  of  strong  limbs  and 
eventful  living,  of  restless  activity,  of  childlike  security. 
Boiardo's  style  reminds  us  somewhat  of  Benozzo 
Gozzoli  in  painting,  or  of  Piero  di  Cosimo,  who  used 
the  skill  of  the  Renaissance  to  express  the  cheerful 
naivete  of  a  less  self-conscious  time.  It  is  sad  to  read 
the  last  stanza  of  the  Innamorato,  cut  short  ere  it  was 
half  completed  by  the  entry  of  the  French  into  Italy, 
and  to  know  that  so  free  and  freshly-tuned  a  "  native 
wood-note  wild"  would  never  sound  again.1  When 
Ariosto  repieced  the  broken  thread,  the  spirit  of  the 
times  was  changed.  Servitude,  adulation,  irony,  and 
the  meridian  splendor  of  Renaissance  art  had  suc- 
ceeded to  independence,  frankness,  enthusiasm  and  the 
poetry  of  natural  enjoyment.  Far  more  magnificent  is 

i  Mentre  che  io  canto,  o  Dio  redentore, 
Vedo  1'  Italia  tutta  a  tiaimna  e  foco. 
Per  questi  Galli,  che  con  gran  valore 
Vengon,  per  disertar  non  so  che  loco. 
Compare  II.  xxxi.  50;  III.  i.  2. 


464  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Ariosto's  Muse;  but  we  lack  the  spontaneity  of  the 
elder  poet.  And  as  the  years  advance,  the  change  is 
more  apparent  toward  decay.  The  genius  of  Boiardo 
might  be  compared  to  some  high-born  lad,  bred  in  the 
country,  pure-hearted,  muscular,  brave,  fair  to  look 
upon.  That  of  Ariosto  is  studious  and  accomplished 
with  the  smile  of  worldly  sarcasm  upon  his  lips.  The 
elegances  of  Bembo  and  the  Petrarchisti  remind  one 
of  a  hectic  scented  fop,  emasculate  and  artificial. 
Aretino  resembles  his  own  bardassonacci,  paggi  da 
taverna,  flaunting  meretricious  charms  with  brazen 
impudence.  Tasso  in  the  distance  wears  a  hair  shirt 
beneath  his  armor  of  parade;  he  is  a  Jesuit's  pupil, 
crossing  himself  when  he  awakes  from  love-dreams 
and  reveries  of  pleasure.  It  was  probably  the  discord 
between  Boiardo's  spirit  and  the  prevailing  temper  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  far  more  than  the  roughness  of 
his  verse  or  the  provinciality  of  his  language,  that 
caused  him  to  be  so  strangely  and  completely  forgotten. 
In  the  Italy  of  Machiavelli  and  the  Borgias,  of  R^ichel- 
angelo  and  Julius  II.,  his  aims,  enthusiasms  and 
artistic  ideals  found  alike  no  sympathy.  To  class  him 
with  his  own  kind,  we  must  go  beyond  the  Alps  and 
seek  his  brethren  in  France  or  England. 

Boiardo's  merit  as  a  constructive  artist  can  best  be 
measured  by  the  analysis  of  his  plot.  Crowded  as  the 
Orlando  Innamorato  is  with  incidents  and  episodes, 
and  inexhaustible  as  may  be  the  luxuriance  of  the 
poet's  fancy,  the  unity  of  his  romance  is  complete. 
From  the  moment  of  Angelica's  appearance  in  the  first 
canto,  the  whole  action  depends  upon  her  movements. 
She  withdraws  the  Paladins  to  Albracca,  and  forces 


STRUCTURE    OF    THE    INNAMORATO.  465 

Charlemagne  to  bear  the  brunt  of  Marsilio's  invasion 
alone.  She  restores  Orlando  to  the  French  host  before 
Montalbano.  It  is  her  ring  which  frees  the  fated 
Ruggiero  from  Atlante's  charms.  The  nations  of  the 
earth  are  in  motion.  East,  West,  and  South  and 
North  send  forth  their  countless  hordes  to  combat ;  but 
these  vast  forces  are  controlled  by  one  woman's 
caprice,  and  events  are  so  handled  by  the  poet  as  to 
make  the  fate  of  myriads  waver  in  the  balance  of  her 
passions.  We  might  compare  Boiardo's  romance  to  an 
immense  web,  in  which  a  variety  of  scenes  and  figures 
are  depicted  by  the  constant  addition  of  new  threads. 
None  of  the  old  threads  are  wasted ;  not  one  is  merely 
superfluous.  If  one  is  dropped  for  a  moment  and  lost 
to  sight,  it  reappears  again.  The  slightest  incidents 
lead  to  the  gravest  results.  Narratives  of  widely 
different  character  are  so  interwoven  as  to  aid  each 
other,  introducing  fresh  agents,  combining  these  with 
those  whom  we  have  learned  to  know,  but  leaving  the 
grand  outlines  of  the  main  design  untouched. 

The  miscellaneous  details  which  enliven  a  tale  of 
chivalry,  are  grouped  round  four  chief  centers — Paris, 
where  the  poem  opens  with  the  tournament  that  intro- 
duces Angelica,  and  where,  at  the  end  of  the  second 
book,  all  the  actors  are  assembled  for  the  supreme 
struggle  between  Christendom  and  Islam ;  Albracca, 
where  Angelica  is  besieged  in  the  far  East;  Biserta, 
where  the  hosts  of  pagan  Agramante  muster,  and  the 
hero  Ruggiero  is  brought  upon  the  scene;  Montal- 
bano, where  Charlemagne  sustains  defeat  at  the  hands 
of  Agramante,  Rodamonte,  Marsilio,  and  Ruggiero. 
In  order  to  combine  such  distant  places  in  one  action, 


466  .   RENAISSANCE    IN   ITALY. 

Boiardo  was  obliged  to  set  geography  and  time  at 
defiance.  Between  Tartary  and  Circassia,  France  and 
Spain,  Africa  and  Hungary,  the  knights  make  marches 
and  countermarches  within  the  space  of  a  few  weeks  or 
even  days.  All  arrive  at  the  same  dangerous  gates  and 
passes,  the  same  seductive  lakes  and  gardens ;  for  the 
magical  machinery  of  the  romance  was  more  important 
to  the  poet's  scheme  than  cosmographical  conditions. 
His  more  than  dramatic  contempt  for  distance  was  in- 
dispensable in  the  conduct  of  a  romance  which  admitted 
of  no  pause  in  the  succession  of  attractive  incidents, 
and  was  also  pardonable  in  an  age  devoid  of  accurate 
geography.  His  chief  aim  was  to  secure  novelty, 
excitement,  variety,  ideal  unity. 

Boiardo  further  showed  his  grasp  of  art  by  the 
emphatic  presentation  of  the  chief  personages,  whose 
action  determined  the  salient  features  of  his  tale.  It  is 
impossible  to  forget  Angelica  after  her  first  entrance  on 
the  scene  at  Paris.  In  like  manner  Marfisa  at  Albracca, 
Rodamonte  in  the  council- chamber  at  Biserta,  Ruggiero 
on  the  heights  of  Mount  Carena,  Orlando  entering  the 
combat  before  Albracca,  Mandricardo  passing  forth 
unarmed  and  unattended  to  avenge  his  father's  death, 
are  brought  so  vividly  before  our  eyes,  that  the  earliest 
impression  of  each  character  remains  with  us  in  all  their 
subsequent  appearances.  The  inferior  actors  are  intro- 
duced with  less  preparation  and  diminished  emphasis, 
because  they 'have  to  occupy  subordinate  positions,  and 
to  group  themselves  around  the  heroes ;  and  thus  the 
whole  vast  poem  is  like  a  piece  of  arras-work,  where 
the  strongest  definition  of  form,  and  the  most  striking 
colors,  serve  to  throw  into  relief  the  principal  figures 


PRESENTATION   OF   CHARACTERS.  467 

amid  a  multitude  of  minor  shapes.  Not  less  skill  is 
manifested  in  the  preservation  of  the  types  of  character 
outlined  in  these  first  descriptions.  To  vary  the 
specific  qualities  of  all  those  knights  engaged  in  the 
same  pursuit  of  love  and  arms,  was  extremely  difficult. 
Yet  Boiardo,  sometimes  working  on  the  lines  laid  down 
by  earlier  romancers,  sometimes  inventing  wholly  new 
conceptions  (as  in  the  case  of  Rodamonte,  Ruggiero, 
Marfisa,  Brandiamante),  may  be  said  to  have  succeeded 
in  this  master-stroke  of  art.  The  Homeric  heroes  are 
scarcely  less  firmly  and  subtly  differentiated  than  his 
champions  of  chivalry. 

Orlando  is  the  ideal  of  Christian  knighthood,  fearless, 
indifferent  to  wealth,  chaste,  religious,  respectful  in  his 
love,  courteous  toward  women,  swift  to  wrath,  but 
generous  even  in  his  rage,  exerting  his  strength  only 
when  the  occasion  is  worthy  of  him.1  His  one  weakness 
is  the  passion  for  Angelica.  Twice  he  refuses  for  her 
sake  to  accompany  Dudone  to  the  help  of  his  liege-lord, 
and  in  the  fight  at  Montalbano  he  is  careless  of  Christen- 
dom so  long  as  he  can  win  his  lady.2  Studying  Boiardo's 
delineation  of  love-lunacy  in  Orlando,  we  understand 
how  Ariosto  was  led  by  it  to  the  conception  of  the 
Furioso.  Rinaldo  is  cast  in  a  somewhat  inferior  mold. 
Lion-hearted,  fierce,  rebellious  against  Charles,  prone 
to  love  and  hate  excessively,  he  is  the  type  of  the 
feudal  baron,  turbulent  and  troublesome  to  his  suzerain. 
Astolfo,  slight,  vain,  garrulous,  fond  of  finery  and  flirt- 
ing, boastful,  yet  as  fearless  as  the  leopards  on  his 

1  Orlando  was  not  handsome  (II.  iii.  63): 

avea  folte  le  ciglia, 

E  P  un  de  gli  occhi  alquanto  stralunava. 
*  Sec  his  prayer,  II.  xxix.  36,  37. 


468  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

shield,  and  winning  hearts  by  his  courtesy  and  grace 
offers  a  spirited  contrast  to  the  massive  vigor  of 
Rinaldo.  It  was  a  master-stroke  of  humor  to  have 
provided  this  fop  of  a  Paladin  with  the  lance  of 
Argalia,  whereby  his  physical  weakness  is  supplemented 
and  his  bravery  becomes  a  match  for  the  muscles  oi 
the  doughtiest  champions.1  Brandimarte  presents 
another  aspect  of  the  chivalrous  ideal.  Fidelity  is  his 
chief  virtue — loyality  to  his  love,  Fiordelisa,  and  his 
hero,  Orlando,  combined  with  a  delightful  frankness 
and  the  freshness  of  untainted  youth.  He  is  not  wise, 
but  boyish,  amorous,  of  a  simple,  trustful  soul;  a  kind 
of  Italian  Sir  Bors.  Ferraguto,  on  the  contrary,  is  all 
fire  and  fury,  as  petulantly  fierce  in  love  as  in  arms,  so 
hot  in  his  temerity  that  even  at  times  he  can  forget 
the  laws  of  honor.2  Mandricardo's  distinctive  quality 
(beside  that  of  generous  daring,  displayed  in  his  solitary 
and  unarmed  quest  of  Orlando,  and  in  the  achievement 
of  Hector's  armor)  is  singular  good  fortune.  Ruggiero 
has  for  his  special  mark  victorious  beauty,  blent  with 
a  courtesy  and  loftiness  of  soul,  that  opens  his  heart  to 
romantic  love,  and  renders  him  peerless  among  youthful 
warriors.  Boiardo  has  spared  no  pains  to  impress  our 
imagination  with  the  potency  of  his  unrivaled  comeli- 
ness.3 He  moves  before  our  eyes  like  the  angelic 

1  See  the  description  of  him  in  the  tournament  (I.  ii.  63,  iii.  4),  when 
he  saves  the  honor  of  Christendom  to  the  surprise  of  everybody  includ- 
ing himself.  Again  (I.  vii.  45-65),  when  he  defies  and  overthrows  Gra- 
aasso,  and  liberates  Charles  from  prison.  The  irony  of  both  situations 
reveals  a  master's  hand. 

»  For  instance,  when  he  attacks  Argalia  with  his  sword,  contrary  to 
stipulation,  after  being  unhorsed  by  him  (I.  i.  71-73).  The  fury  of  Fer- 
raguto in  this  scene  is  one  of  Boiardo's  most  brilliant  episodes. 

3  His  epithets  are  &\waiysfiorito,Jiordicortesiat  di  franchezza  fiore 
etc.  For  the  effect  of  his  beauty,  see  II.  xxi.  49,  50.  The  education  oi 


GRADATIONS   IN   CHARACTER-DRAWING.  469 

knight  in  Mantegna's  Madonna  of  the  Victory,  or  like 
Giorgione's  picture  of  the  fair^haired  and  mail-clad 
donzel,  born  to  conquer  by  the  might  of  beauty.  Agra- 
mante,  the  Eastern  Emperor,  whose  council  is  composed 
of  thirty-two  crowned  heads,  enhances  by  his  arrogance 
of  youth  the  world-worn  prudence  of  old  Charlemagne. 
Marfisa,  the  Amazonian  Indian  queen,  who  has  the 
force  of  twenty  knights,  and  is  as  cruel  in  her  courage 
as  a  famished  tigress,  sets  off  the  gentler  prowess  of 
Brandiamante,  Rinaldo's  heroic  sister.  Rodamonte  is 
the  blustering,  atheistic,  insolent  young  Ajax,  standing 
alone  against  armies,  and  hurling  defiance  at  heaven 
from  the  midst  of  a  sinking  navy.1  Agricane  is  dis- 
tinguished as  the  knight  who  loves  fighting  for  its  own 
sake,  and  disdains  culture;  Sacripante,  as  the  gentle 
and  fearless  suitor  of  Angelica;  Gradasso,  as  the 
hyperbolical  champion  of  the  Orient,  inflamed  with  a 
romantic  desire  to  gain  Durlindana  and  Baiardo,  the 
enchanted  sword  and  horse.  Gano  and  Truffaldino, 
among  these  paragons  of  honor,  are  notable  traitors, 
the  one  brave  when  he  chooses  to  abandon  craft,  the 
other  cowardly.  Brunello  is  the  Thersites  of  the 
company,  a  perfect  thief,  misshapen,  mischievous,  con- 
summate in  his  guile.2  Malagise  deals  in  magic,  and 
has  a  swarm  of  demons  at  his  back  for  all  exigences. 
Turpin's  chivalry  is  tempered  with  a  subtle  flavor  of 

Ruggiero  by  Atalante  was  probably  suggested  to  Boiardo  by  the  tale  of 
Cheiron  and  Achilles.  See  II.  i.  74,  75. 

'  See  II.  i.  56,  for  Rodamonte's  first  appearance;  for  his  atheism.  II. 
1U.  22: 

Che  sol  il  mio  buon  brando  c  1'  armatura 
E  la  mazza,  ch'  io  porto,  e  "1  destrier  mio 
E  1'  animo,  ch'  io  ho,  sono  il  mio  Uio. 
«  II.  Hi.  40. 


470  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

the  priest,  exposing  him  to  Boiardo's  mockery.  Of 
Oliver  and  Ogier  we  hear,  accidentally  perhaps,  but 
little.  Such  are  some  of  Boiardo's  personages.  Not 
a  few  were  given  to  him  by  the  old  romancers;  but 
these  he  has  new-fashioned  to  his  needs.1  Others  he 
has  molded  from  his  own  imagination  with  such  plastic 
force  that  they  fall  short  in  no  respect  of  the  time- 
honored  standard.  It  is  no  slight  tribute  to  his  crea- 
tive power  that  we  recognize  a  real  fraternity  between 
these  puppets  of  his  fancy  and  the  mythic  heroes  with 
whom  they  are  associated.  As  Boiardo  left  the  actors 
in  his  drama,  so  Ariosto  took  them  up  and  with  but 
slight  change  treated  them  in  his  continuation  of  the 
tale. 

Women,  with  the  exception  of  Marfisa  and  Bran- 
diamante,  fare  but  ill  at  Boiardo's  hands.  He  seems 
to  have  conceived  of  female  character  as  a  compound 
of  fickleness,  infidelity,  malice,  falsehood,  and  light 
love.  Angelica  is  little  better  than  a  seductive  witch, 
who  dotes  on  Rinaldo,  and  yet  contrives  to  make  use 
of  Orlando,  luring  him  to  do  her  purpose  by  false 
promises.2  Falerina  and  Dragontina  are  sorceresses, 
apt  for  all  iniquity  and  guile.  Morgana  and  Alcina 
display  the  capricious  loves  and  inhuman  spites  of 
fairies.  Origille  is  a  subtle  traitress,  beautiful  enough 
to  deceive  Orlando,  but  as  poisonous  as  a  serpent 
Even  the  ladies  who  are  intended  to  be  amiable,  show 

1  In  Bello's  Mambriano,  for  instance,  we  have  a  very  lively  picture 
ot  the  amorous  and  vain  Astolfo.  Pulci  supplies  us  with  even  a  moie 
impressive  Orlando  than  Boiardo's  hero,  while  his  Amazonian  heroines, 
Meridiana  and  Antea,  are  at  least  rough  sketches  for  Marfisa.  It  was 
Boiardo's  merit  to  have  grasped  these  characters  and  drawn  them  with 
a  fullness  of  minute  detail  that  enhances  their  vitality. 

•  Her  arts  and  their  success  are  splendidly  set  forth.  I.  xxv.  xxvi. 


FEMALE    CHARACTERS.  471 

but  a  low  standard  of  morality.1  Leodilla,  princess  of 
the  Far  Isles,  glories  in  adultery,  and  hates  Orlando  for 
his  constancy  to  Angelica  in  absence.2  Fiordelisa  is 
false  in  thought  to  Brandimarte,  when  she  sees  Rinaldo 
sleeping  in  the  twilight.  The  picture,  however,  of  the 
slumbering  warrior  and  the  watchful  maiden  is  so  fresh 
and  true  to  Boiardo's  genius  that  it  deserves  quota- 
tion 3 : 

Upon  his  steed  forthwith  hath  sprung  the  knight, 

And  with  the  damsel  rideth  fast  away; 

Not  far  they  fared,  when  slowly  waned  the  light, 

And  forced  them  to  dismount  and  there  to  stay. 

Rinaldo  'neath  a  tree  slept  all  the  night; 

Close  at  his  side  the  lovely  lady  lay: 

But  the  strong  magic  of  wise  Merlin's  well 

Had  on  the  baron's  temper  cast  a  spell. 

He  now  can  sleep  anigh  that  beauteous  dame; 
Nor  of  her  neighborhood  have  any  care; 
Erewhile  a  sea,  a  flood,  a  raging  flame 
Would  not  have  stayed  his  quick  desire,  I  swear: 
To  clasp  so  fair  a  creature  without  shame, 
Walls,  mountains,  he'd  have  laid  in  ruins  there; 
Now  side  by  side  they  sleep,  and  naught  he  recks; 
While  her,  methinks,  far  other  thoughts  perplex. 

The  air,  meanwhile,  was  growing  bright  around, 

Although  not  yet  the  sun  his  face  had  shown; 

Some  stars  the  tranquil  brows  of  heaven  still  crowned; 

The  birds  upon  the  trees  sang  one  by  one; 

Dark  night  had  flown;  bright  day  was  not  yet  found: 

Then  toward  Rinaldo  turned  the  maid  alone; 

For  she  with  morning  light  had  cast  off  sleep, 

While  he  upon  the  grass  still  slumbered  deep. 


i  In  proem  to  II.  xii.,  Boiardo  makes  an  excuse,  imitated  by  Ariosto 
to  his  lady  for  this  bad  treatment  of  women. 

•  Leodilla's  story  is  found  in  I.  xxi.  xxii.  xxiv.  14-17,  44. 
»  I.  iii.  47-50- 


472  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Beauteous  he  was,  and  but  a  stripling  then; 
Strong-thewed  and  lithe,  and  with  a  lively  face; 
Broad  in  the  chest,  but  in  the  haunches  thin; 
The  lady  gazed,  smit  with  his  manly  grace: 
His  beard  scarce  budded  upon  cheek  and  chin: 
Gazing,  she  almost  fainted  in  that  place, 
And  took  such  pleasure  in  so  sweet  a  sight 
That  naught  she  heeds  beyond  this  one  delight. 

Love,  as  conceived  by  Boiardo,  though  a  powerful  and 
steadfast  passion,  is  not  spiritual.  The  knights  love 
like  centaurs,  and  fight  like  bulls  for  the  privilege  of 
paying  suit  to  their  ladies.  Rinaldo  and  Orlando  meet 
in  deadly  duel  for  Angelica;  Rodamonte  and  Ferraguto 
dispute  Doralice,  though  the  latter  does  not  care  for 
her,  and  only  asserts  his  right  to  dwell  in  thought  upon 
her  charms.  Orlando  and  Agricane  break  their  court- 
eous discourse  outside  Albracca  to  fight  till  one  of  them 
is  killed,  merely  ^because  the  name  of  Angelica  has  inter- 
vened. For  Boiardo's  descriptions  of  love  returned, 
and  crowned  with  full  fruition,  the  reader  may  be  re- 
ferred to  two  magnificent  passages  in  the  episodes  of 
Leodilla  and  Fiordelisa.1  Poetically  noble  in  spite  of 
their  indelicacy,  these  pictures  of  sensuous  and  natural 
enjoyment  might  be  paralleled  with  the  grand  frank- 
ness of  Venetian  painting.  It  is  to  be  regretted  for 
Boiardo's  credit  as  an  artist  in  expression,  that  more 

rthan  a  bare  reference  to  them  is  here  impossible. 
Boiardo's  conception  of  friendship  or  fraternity  in 
arms  is  finer.  The  delineation  of  affection  generated 
by  mutual  courtesy  under  the  most  trying  conditions 
of  intercourse,  which  binds  together  the  old  rivals 
Iroldo  and  Prasildo,  has  something  in  it  truly  touching.1 

'  I.  xxii.  24-27;  I.  xix.  60-65.  *  !•  xv"-  3I«  M' 


LOVE    AND    COMRADESHIP.  473 

The  same  passion  of  comradeship  finds  noble  expres- 
sion in  the  stanzas  uttered  by  Orlando,  when  he  rec- 
ognizes Rinaldo's  shield  suspended  by  Aridano  near 
Morgana's  Lake.1  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  cous- 
ins had  recently  parted  as  foes,  after  a  fierce  battle  for 
Angelica  before  Albracca: 

Hearing  these  dulcet  words,  the  Count  began 
Little  by  little  of  his  will  to  yield; 
Backward  already  he  withdrew  a  span, 
When,  gazing  on  the  bridge  and  guarded  field, 
Force  was  that  he  the  armor  bright  should  scan 
Which  erst  Rinaldo  bore — broad  sword  and  shield: 
Then  weeping,  "  Who  hath  done  me  this  despite?  " 
He  cried:  "  Oh,  who  hath  slain  my  perfect  knight? 

"  Here  wast  thou  killed  by  foulest  treachery 

Of  that  false  robber  on  this  slippery  bridge; 

For  all  the  .world  could  not  have  conquered  thee 

In  fair  fight,  front  to  front,  and  edge  to  edge: 

Cousin,  from  heaven  incline  thine  ear  to  me! 

Where  now  thou  reignest,  list  thy  lord  and  liege! 

Me  who  so  loved  thee,  though  my  brief  misprision, 

Through  too  much  love,  wrought  'twixt  our  lives  division. 

"I  crave  thy  pardon:  pardon  me,  I  pray, 

If  e'er  I  did  thee  wrong,  sweet  cousin  mine! 

I  was  thine  ever,  as  I  am  alway, 

Though  false  suspicion,  or  vain  love  malign, 

And  jealous  blindness,  on  an  evil  day. 

Brought  me  to  cross  my  furious  brand  with  thine: 

Yet  all  the  while  I  loved  thee — love  thee  now; 

Mine  was  the  fault,  and  only  mine,  I  vow. 

"  What  traitorous  wolf  ravening  for  blood  was  he 
Who  thus  debarred  us  twain  from  kind  return 
To  concord  sweet  and  sweet  tranquillity, 
Sweet  kisses,  and  sweet  tears  of  souls  that  yearn  ? 
This  is  the  anguish  keen  that  conquers  me, 
That  now  I  may  not  to  thy  bosom  turn, 
And  speak,  and  beg  for  pardon,  ere  I  part; 
This  is  the  grief,  the  dole  that  breaks  my  heart! " 

«  II.  vii.  50. 


474  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Scarcely  less  beautiful  is  the  feeling  which  binds  Bra 
dimarte  to  the  great  Count,  the  inferior  to  the  superi 
hero,  making  him  ready  to  release  his  master  froi 
Manodante's  prison  at  the  price  of  his  own  liberty, 
Boiardo  devotes  the  exordium  of  the  seventh  Cantc 
of  the  third  Book  to  a  panegyric  of  chivalrous  friend- 
ship: 

Far  more  than  health,  far  more  than  strength  Is  worth, 

Nay  more  than  pleasure,  more  than  honor  vain, 

Is  friendship  tried  alike  in  dole  and  mirth: 

For  when  one  love  doth  join  the  hearts  of  twain, 

Their  woes  are  halved,  their  joys  give  double  birth 

To  joy,  by  interchange  of  grief  and  pain; 

And  when  doubts  rise,  with  free  and  open  heart 

Each  calls  his  friend,  who  gladly  bears  a  part. 

What  profit  is  there  in  much  pearls  and  gold, 
Or  power,  or  proud  estate,  or  royal  reign? 
Lacking  a  friend,  mere  wealth  is  frosty  cold: 
He  who  loves  not,  and  is  not  loved  again, 
From  him  true  joys  their  perfect  grace  withhold: 
And  this  I  say,  since  now  across  the  main 
Brave  Brandimarte  drives  his  flying  ship 
To  help  Orlando,  drawn  by  comradeship. 

Next  to  bravery  the  poet's  favorite  virtue  is  courtesy, 
It  is  enough  to  mention  Orlando's  gentle  forbearance 
with  Agricane  at  Albracca,  their  evening  conversation 
in  the  midst  of  a  bloody  duel,  and  the  hero's  sorrow 
when  he  has  wounded  his  opponent  to  the  death.2  Of 
the  same  quality  is  the  courteous  behavior  of  Rinaklo 
and  Gradasso  before  a  deadly  encounter,  the  aid 
afforded  to  Marfisa  by  Rinaldo  in  the  midst  of  their 
duel,  and  the  graceful  sympathy  of  Astolfo  for  Bran- 
dimarte, whom  he  has  unhorsed.3  But  the  two  pas- 

t  II.  xii.  14,  et  sff.  *  I.  xvi.  36-44;  xviii.  39  47;  xix.  15,  16. 

8  I.  v.  7-12;  xix.  47;  ix.  55-57. 


COURAGE    AND   COURTESY.  475 

sages  which  illustrate  Boiardo's  ideal  of  the  chivalrous 
character,  as  blent  of  bravery  and  courtesy,  of  intelli- 
gence and  love,  are  Orlando's  discourse  with  Agricane 
and  his  speech  to  Morgana's  maiden.  In  the  first  of 
these  the  Count  and  King  had  fought  till  nightfall. 
Then  they  agree  to  sleep  together  side  by  side,  and  to 
resume  the  combat  at  daybreak.  Before  they  settle  for 
the  night,  they  talk l : 

After  the  sun  below  the  hills  was  laid, 
And  with  bright  stars  the  sky  began  to  glow, 
Unto  the  King  these  words  Orlando  said: 
"  What  shall  we  do,  now  that  the  day  is  low?  " 
Then  Agrican  made  answer,  "  Make  our  bed 
Together  here,  amid  the  herbs  that  grow; 
And  then  to-morrow  with  the  dawn  of  light 
We  can  return  and  recommence  the  fight." 

No  sooner  said,  than  straight  they  were  agreed: 

Each  tied  his  horse  to  trees  that  near  them  grew; 

Then  down  they  lay  upon  the  grassy  mead — 

You  might  have  thought  they  were  old  friends  and  true, 

So  close  and  careless  couched  they  in  the  reed. 

Orlando  nigh  unto  the  fountain  drew, 

And  Agrican  hard  by  the  forest  laid 

His  length  beneath  a  mighty  pine-tree's  shade. 

Herewith  the  twain  began  to  hold  debate 

Of  fitting  things  and  meet  for  noble  knights. 

The  Count  looked  up  to  heaven  and  cried,  "  How  great 

And  fair  is  yonder  frame  of  glittering  lights, 

Which  God,  the  mighty  monarch,  did  create; 

The  silvery  moon,  and  stars  that  gem  our  nights, 

The  light  of  day,  yea,  and  the  lustrous  sun, 

For  us  poor  men  God  made  them  every  onel " 

But  Agrican:  "  Full  well  I  apprehend 
It  is  your  wish  toward  faith  our  talk  to  turn: 
Of  science  less  than  naught  I  comprehend; 
Nay,  when  I  was  a  boy,  I  would  not  learn, 

>  I.  xviii.  39-47- 


476  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

But  broke  my  master's  head  to  make  amend 
For  his  much  prating;  no  one  since  did  yearn 
To  teach  me  book  or  writing,  such  the  dread 
Wherewith  I  filled  them  for  my  hardihead. 

"  And  so  I  let  my  boyish  days  flow  by, 

In  hunting,  feats  of  arms,  and  horsemanship; 

Nor  is  it  meet,  meseems,  for  chivalry 

To  pore  the  livelong  day  on  scholarship. 

True  knights  should  strive  to  prove  their  skill,  say  I, 

And  strength  of  limb  in  noble  fellowship; 

Leave  priests  and  teaching  men  from  books  to  learn. 

I  know  enough,  thank  God,  to  serve  my  turn." 

Then  spake  the  Count:  "Thus  far  we  both  agree; 
Arms  are  the  chief  prime  honor  of  a  knight. 
Yet  knowledge  brings  no  shame  that  I  can  see, 
But  rather  fame,  as  fields  with  flowers  are  bright; 
More  like  an  ox,  a  stock,  a  stone  is  he 
Who  never  thinks  of  God's  eternal  light; 
Nor  without  learning  can  we  rightly  dwell 
On  his  high  majesty  adorable." 

Then  Agrican,  "  Small  courtesy  it  were, 
War  with  advantage  so  complete  to  wage! 
My  nature  I  have  laid  before  you  bare; 
I  know  full  well  that  you  are  learned  and  sage; 
Therefore  to  answer  you  I  do  not  care. 
Sleep  if  you  like;  in  sleep  your  soul  assuage; 
Or  if  you  choose  with  me  to  hold  discourse, 
I  look  for  talk  of  love,  and  deeds  of  force. 

"  Now,  I  beseech  you,  answer  me  the  truth 
Of  what  I  ask,  upon  a  brave  man's  faith: 
Are  you  the  great  Orlando,  in  good  sooth, 
Whose  name  and  fame  the  whole  world  echoeth? 
Whence  are  you  come,  and  why?    And  since  your  youth 
Were  you  by  love  inthralled?     For  story  saith 
That  any  knight  who  loves  not,  though  he  seem 
To  sight  alive,  yet  lives  but  in  a  dream." 

Then  spake  the  Count:  "  Orlando  sure  am  I 
Who  both  Almonte  and  his  brother  slew. 
Imperious  love  hath  lost  me  utterly, 
And  made  me  journey  to  strange  lands  and  DOW; 


ITALIAN  WEAL    OF  KNIGHTHOOD.  477 

/ 

And,  for  I  fain  would  thus  in  amity 
Prolong  discourse,  therefore  I  tell  you  true, 
She  who  now  lies  within  Albracca's  wall, 
Gallafron's  daughter,  holds  my  heart  in  thrall." 

This  unlucky  mention  of  Angelica  stirs  the  rage  of  Agri- 
cane,  and  the  two  men  fight  in  the  moonlight  beneath 
the  forest-trees  till  the  young  King  is  wounded  to  the 
death — a  splendid  subject  for  some  imaginative  paint- 
er's pencil.  We  may  notice  in  this  dialogue  the  modi- 
fication of  chivalry  occasioned  by  Italian  respect  for 
culture.  Boiardo  exalts  the  courage  of  the  educated 
gentleman  above  the  valor  of  a  man-at-arms.  In  the 
conversation  between  Orlando  and  Morgana's  maiden 
he  depicts  another  aspect  of  the  knightly  ideal.  The 
fairy  has  made  Orlando  offer  of  inestimable  treasures, 
but  he  answers  that  indifference  to  riches  is  the  sign  of 
a  noble  heart1: 

Orlando  smiling  heard  what  she  would  say, 
But  scarce  allowed  her  time  her  speech  to  end, 
Seeing  toward  riches  of  the  sort  the  fay 
Proffered,  his  haughty  soul  he  would  not  bend; 
Wherefore  he  spake:  "  It  irked  me  not  to-day 
My  very  life  unto  the  death  to  spend; 
For  only  perils  and  great  toils  sustain 
Honor  of  chivalry  without  a  stain. 

"  But  for  the  sake  of  gold  or  silver  gear, 

I  would  not  once  have  drawn  my  brand  so  bright; 

For  he  who  holds  mere  gain  of  money  dear 

Hath  set  himself  to  labor  infinite; 

The  more  he  gets  the  less  his  gains  appear; 

Nor  can  he  ever  sate  his  appetite; 

They  who  most  have,  still  care  for  more  to  spend, 

Wherefore  this  way  of  life  hath  ne'er  an  end." 

Having  seen  the  knights  in  their  more  generous 

'  I.  xxv.  13,  14. 


478  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

moments,  we  ought  to  bear  in  mind  that  they  are  ca- 
pable of  blustering,  boasting,  and  exchanging  foul  abuse 
like  humanists.  One  reference  will  suffice.  Orlando 
and  Rinaldo  quarrel  at  Albracca  and  defy  each  other 
to  combat.  Before  fighting  they  indulge  in  elaborate 
caricatures  and  vilifications,  from  which  it  would 
appear,  to  say  the  least,  that  these  champions  of 
Christendom  were  the  subject  of  much  scandalous 
gossip.1 

Human  nature,  unsophisticated  and  unqualified, 
with  the  crude  impulses  and  the  contradictions  proper 
to  an  unreflective  age,  has  been  studied  by  Boiardo 
for  his  men  and  women.  His  power  of  expressing 
the  passions  by  natural  signs  might  win  for  him  the 
title  of  the  Homer  of  Chivalry.  The  love  lamenta- 
tions of  Prasildo,  the  love-languors  of  Angelica,  the 
frenzy  of  Marfisa,  the  wrath  of  Ferraguto,  the  tru- 
culency  of  Rodamonte,  the  impish  craft  of  Brunello, 
Origille's  cunning,  Brandimarte's  fervor,  Ruggiero's 
impatience  to  try  his  strength  in  the  tournament,  and 
his  sudden  ecstasy  of  love  for  Brandiamante — these 
and  a  hundred  other  instances  of  vigorous  dramatic 
presentation  could  be  mentioned.  In  his  pictures  of 
scenery  and  descriptions  Boiardo  follows  nature  no  less 
faithfully — and  this,  be  it  remembered,  in  an  age  which 
refined  on  nature  and  admitted  into  art  only  certain 
chosen  phases  of  her  loveliness.  Of  affectation  and 
elaboration  he  has  none.  The  freshness  of  authentic 
vision  gives  peculiar  vividness  to  the  storm  that  over- 
takes Rodamonte  in  mid-channel;  to  the  garden  of 
Falerina,  where  Orlando  stuffs  his  cask  with  roses  in 
1  I.  xxvii.  15-22:  xxviii.  4-11. 


FRESHNESS    OF  BOIARDO'S   ART.  479 

i 

order  to  stop  his  ears  against  a  Siren's  song;  to  the 
picture  of  Morgana  combing  Ziliante's  hair  in  the 
midst  of  her  enchanted  meadows,  and  to  the  scene  in 
which  Angelica  greets  Orlando  with  a  perfumed  bath 
after  the  battle. l  The  charm  of  Boiardo's  poetry  con- 
sists in  its  firm  grasp  on  truth  and  nature,  the  spon- 
taneity and  immediateness  of  its  painting.  He  has 
none  of  Poliziano's  richness,  no  Virgilian  dignity  or 
sweetness,  no  smooth  and  sparkling  fluency  like  that 
of  Ariosto.  But  all  that  he  writes  has  in  it  the  per- 
fume of  the  soil,  the  freedom  of  the  open  air;  the 
spirits  of  the  woods  and  sea  and  stars  are  in  it  Of 
his  style  the  most  striking  merit  is  rapidity.  Almost 
always  unpolished,  sometimes  even  coarse,  but  invari- 
ably spirited  and  masculine,  his  verse  leaps  onward 
like  a  grayhound  in  its  swiftness.  Story  succeeds 
story  with  extraordinary  speed;  and  whether  of  love 
or  arms,  they  are  equally  well  told.  The  pathetic 
novel  of  Tisbina,  Rinaldo's  wondrous  combat  with  the 
griffins  and  the  giants,  the  lion-hunt  at  Biserta,  the 
mustering  of  Agramante's  lieges,  and  the  flux  and  re- 
flux of  battle  before  Montalbano  tax  the  vivid  and 
elastic  vigor  of  Boiardo  in  five  distinct  species  of 
rapid  narration ;  and  in  all  of  them  he  proves  himself 
more  than  adequate  to  the  strain.  For  ornaments  he 
cared  but  little,  nor  did  he  wait  to  elaborate  similes. 
A  lion  at  bay,  a  furious  bull,  a  river  foaming  to  the 
sea,  a  swollen  torrent,  two  battling  winds,  a  storm  of 
hail,  the  clash  of  thunderclouds,  an  earthquake,  are 
the  figures  he  is  apt  to  use.  The  descriptions  of 
Rinaldo,  Marfisa  and  Orlando,  may  be  cited  as  favor- 
1  1L  vi.  7-15,  28-^42;  II.  iv.  24-39;  H-  x»i-  20-23;  L  KKV-  38* 


480  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

able  specimens  of  his  illustrative  metaphors.1  Short 
phrases  like  a  guisa  di  leone,  a  guisa  di  colomba,  a 
guisa  di  serpente*  a  guisa  d'uno  drago,  a  guisa  di 
castello,  indicate  in  outline  images  that  aid  the  poet's 
thought.  But  nothing  like  the  polish  or  minuteness 
of  Ariosto's  highly-wrought  comparisons  can  be  found 
in  the  Innamorato.  Boiardo's  study  of  the  classics 
had  not  roused  him  to  the  emulation  of  their  decora- 
tive beauties.  Nor,  again,  did  he  attend  to  cadence  in 
his  versification.  He  would  have  wondered  at  the 
lima  labor  of  the  poets  who  came  after  him.  His 
own  stanzas  are  forcible,  swift,  fiery,  never  pompous 
or  voluptuous,  liquid  or  sonorous.  The  changes 
wrought  by  Poliziano  in  the  structure  of  ottava  rima, 
his  majesty  and  "linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out," 
were  unknown  to  Boiardo.  Yet  those  rugged  octaves, 
in  spite  of  their  halting  pauses  at  the  end  of  the  fifth 
line,  in  spite  of  their  frequent  repetitions  and  inequali- 
ties of  volume,  are  better  adapted  to  the  spirit  of  his 
medieval  subject-matter  than  the  sumptuous  splendor 
of  more  polished  versifiers.  His  diction,  in  like  man- 
ner, judged  by  the  standard  of  the  cinque  cento,  is  far 
from  choice — loaded  with  Lombardisms,  gaining  energy 
and  vividness  at  the  expense  of  refinement  and  precision. 
Thus  style  and  spirit  alike  removed  him  from  the 
sympathies  of  the  correct  and  classic  age  that  fol- 
lowed. 

For  the  student  of  the  earlier  Renaissance  Boiardo's 
art  has  one  commanding  point  of  interest.  In  the 
romantic  treatment  of  antique  motives  he  is  unique. 
It  was  the  aim  of  Italian  poets  after  Boccaccio  to  effect 

i  I.  xxiii.  38,  47;  xxvi.  28. 


TREATMENT   OF    THE   ANTIQUE.  481 

a  fusion  between  the  classical  and  modern  styles,  and 
to  ingraft  the  beauties  of  antique  literature  upon  their 
own  language.  Boiardo,  far  more  a  child  of  nature  than 
either  Boccaccio  or  Poliziano,  with  deeper  sympathy 
for  feudal  traditions  and  chivalrous  modes  of  feeling, 
attacked  this  problem  from  a  point  of  view  directly 
opposite  to  theirs.  His  comprehensive  study  of  Greek 
and  Roman  authors  had  stored  his  mind  with  legends 
which  gave  an  impulse  to  the  freedom  of  his  own 
imagination.  He  did  not  imitate  the  ancients;  but 
used  the  myths  with  so  much  novelty  and  delicate 
perception  of  their  charm,  that  beneath  his  touch 
they  assumed  a  fresh  and  fascinating  quality.  There 
is  nothing  grotesque  in  his  presentation  of  Hellenic 
fancy,  nothing  corresponding  to  tfre  medieval  trans- 
formation of  deities  into  devils;  and  yet  his  spirit 
is  not  classical.  His  Sphinx,  his  Cyclops,  and  his 
Circe- Dragontina,  his  Medusa,  his  Pegasus,  his  Cen- 
taur, his  Atalanta,  his  Satyr,  are  living  creatures  of 
romantic  wonderland,  with  just  enough  of  classic 
gracefulness  to  remove  them  from  the  murky  atmo- 
sphere of  medieval  superstition  into  the  serene  ether  of 
a  neo-pagan  mythology.  Nothing  can  be  more  dis- 
similar from  Ovid,  more  unlike  the  forms  of  Graeco- 
Roman  sculpture.  With  his  firm  grasp  upon  reality, 
Boiardo  succeeded  in  naturalizing  these  classic  fancies. 
They  are  not  copied,  but  drawn  from  the  life  of  the 
poet's  imagination.  A  good  instance  of  this  creative 
faculty  is  the  description  of  the  Faun,  who  haunts  the 
woodland  in  the  shade  of  leaves,  and  lives  on  fruits 
and  drinks  the  stream,  and  weeps  when  the  sky  is  fair, 
because  he  then  fears  bad  weather,  but  laughs  when  it 


482  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

rains,  because  he  knows  the  sun  will  shine  again.1  It 
is  not  easy  to  find  an  exact  analogue  in  the  sister  arts 
to  this  poetry,  though  some  points  in  the  work  of 
Botticelli  and  Piero  di  Cosimo,  some  early  engravings 
by  Robeta  and  the  Master  of  the  Caduceus,  some  bass- 
reliefs  of  Amadeo  or  incrustations  on  the  chapel-walls 
of  S.  Francesco  at  Rimini,  a  Circe  by  Dosso  Dossi  in 
the  Borghese  palace  at  Rome,  an  etching  of  Mantegna 
here  or  there,  might  be  quoted  in  illustration  of  its 
spirit.2  Better  justice  can  be  done  to  Boiardo's 
achievement  by  citation  than  by  critical  description. 
The  following  stanzas  are  a  picture  of  Love  attended 
by  the  Graces,  punishing  Rinaldo  for  his  rudeness  near 
the  Font  of  Merlin3: 

When  to  the  leafy  wood  his  feet  were  brought, 

Towards  Merlin's  Font  at  once  he  took  his  way; 

Unto  the  font  that  changes  amorous  thought 

Journeyed  the  Paladin  without  delay; 

But  a  new  sight,  the  which  he  had  not  sought, 

Caused  him  upon  the  path  his  feet  to  stay. 

Within  the  wood  there  is  a  little  close 

Full  of  pink  flowers,  and  white,  and  various: 

And  in  the  midst  thereof  a  naked  boy, 
Singing,  took  solace  with  surpassing  cheer; 
Three  ladies  round  him,  as  around  their  joy, 
«  Danced  naked  in  the  light  so  soft  and  clear. 

No  sword,  no  shield,  hath  been  his  wonted  toy; 
Brown  are  his  eyes;  yellow  his  curls  appear; 
His  downy  beard  hath  scarce  begun  to  grow: 
One  saith  'tis  there,  and  one  might  answer,  No! 

With  violets,  roses,  flowers  of  every  dye, 
Baskets  they  filled  and  eke  their  beauteous  hands: 
Then  as  they  dance  in  joy  and  amity, 
The  Lord  of  Montalbano  near  them  stands: 

»  I.  xxiii.  6. 

*  Burnc  Jones,  in  his  Pan  and  Syrinx,  offers  a  parallel. 

»  IL  xv.  43  tt  stq. 


RINALDO    AT  MERLIN'S    FONT.  483 

Whereat,  "  Behold  the  traitor! "  loud  they  cry, 
Soon  as  they  mark  the  foe  within  their  bands; 
"  Behold  the  thief,  the  scorner  of  delight, 
Caught  in  the  trap  at  last  in  sorry  plight!" 

Then  with  their  baskets  all  with  one  consent 

Upon  Rinaldo  like  a  tempest  bore: 

One  flings  red  roses,  one  with  violets  blent 

Showers  lilies,  hyacinths,  fast  as  she  can  pour: 

Each  flower  in  falling  with  strange  pain  hath  rent 

His  heart  and  pricked  his  marrow  to  the  core, 

Lighting  a  flame  in  ever)'  smitten  part, 

As  though  the  flowers  concealed  a  fiery  dart. 

The  boy  who,  naked,  coursed  along  the  sod, 

Emptied  his  basket  first,  and  then  began, 

Wielding  a  long-grown  leafy  lily  rod, 

To  scourge  the  helmet  of  the  tortured  man: 

No  aid  Rinaldo  found  against  the  god, 

But  fell  to  earth  as  helpless  children  can; 

The  youth  who  saw  him  fallen,  by  the  feet 

Seized  him,  and  dragged  him  through  the  meadow  sweet. 

And  those  three  dames  had  each  a  garland  rare 
Of  roses;  one  was  red  and  one  was  white: 
These  from  their  snowy  brows  and  foreheads  fair 
They  tore  in  haste,  to  beat  the  writhing  knight: 
In  vain  he  cried  and  raised  his  hands  in  prayer; 
For  still  they  struck  till  they  were  tired  quite: 
And  round  about  him  on  the  sward  they  went, 
Nor  ceased  from  striking  till  the  morn  was  spent 

Nor  massy  cuirass,  nor  stout  plate  of  steel, 
Could  yield  defense  against  those  bitter  blows: 
His  flesh  was  swollen  with  many  a  livid  weal 
Beneath  his  mail,  and  with  such  fiery  woes 
Inflamed  as  spirits  damned  in  hell  may  feel; 
Yet  theirs,  upon  my  troth,  are  fainter  throes: 
Wherefore  that  Baron,  sore,  and  scant  of  breath, 
For  pain  and  fear  was  well-nigh  brought  to  death. 

Nor  whether  they  were  gods  or  men  he  knew; 
Nor  prayer,  nor  courage,  nor  defense  availed, 
Till  suddenly  upon  their  shoulders  grew 
And  budded  wings  with  gleaming  gold  engrailed, 


484  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Radiant  with  crimson,  white,  and  azure  blue; 
And  with  a  living  eye  each  plume  was  tailed, 
Not  like  a  peacock's  or  a  bird's,  but  bright 
And  tender  as  a  girl's  with  love's  delight. 

Then  after  small  delay  their  flight  they  took, 
And  one  by  one  soared  upward  to  the  sky, 
Leaving  Rinaldo  sole  beside  the  brook. 
Full  bitterly  that  Baron  'gan  to  cry, 
For  grief  and  dole  so  great  his  bosom  shook 
That  still  it  seemed  that  he  must  surely  die; 
And  in  the  end  so  fiercely  raged  his  pain 
That  like  a  corpse  he  fell  along  the  plain. 

This  is  a  fine  painting  in  the  style  I  have  attempted  to 
characterize — the  imagery  of  the  Greek  mythology 
taking  a  new  and  natural  form  of  fanciful  romance.  It 
is  alien  to  anything  in  antique  poetry  or  sculpture. 
Yet  the  poet's  imagination  had  been  touched  to  finest 
issues  by  the  spirit  of  the  Greeks  before  he  wrote  it.' 
Incapable  of  transplanting  the  flowers  of  antiquity 
like  delicate  exotics  into  the  conservatory  of  studied 
art,  he  acclimatized  them  to  the  air  of  thought  and 
feeling  in  which  his  own  romantic  spirit  breathed. 
This  distinguishes  him  from  Poliziano,  whose  stately 
poem,  like  the  palm-house  in  Kew  Gardens,  contains 
specimens  of  all  the  fairest  species  gathered  from  the 
art  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Even  more  exquisitely 
instinct  with  the  first  April  freshness  of  Renaissance 
feeling  is  another  episode,  where  Boiardo  presents  the 
old  tale  of  Narcissus  under  a  wholly  new  and  original 
aspect.  By  what  strange  freak  of  fancy  has  he  con- 
verted Echo  into  an  Empress  of  the  East  and  added 
the  pathos  of  the  fairy  Silvanella,  whose  petulance  amid 
her  hopeless  love  throws  magic  on  the  well !  We  arr 
far  away  indeed  from  the  Pompeian  frescoes  here1- 

1  II.  xvii.  49  et  seq. 


NARCISSUS.  48*5 

Beyond  the  bridge  there  was  a  little  close 
All  round  the  marble  of  that  fountain  fair; 
And  in  the  midst  a  sepulcher  arose, 
Not  made  by  mortal  art,  however  rare: 
Above  in  golden  letters  ran  the  gloss, 
Which  said,  "  That  soul  is  vain  beyond  compare 
That  falls  a-doting  on  his  own  sweet  eyes. 
Here  in  the  tomb  the  boy  Narcissus  lies." 

Erewhile  Narcissus  was  a  damozel 
So  graceful,  and  of  beauty  so  complete, 
That  no  fair  painted  form  adorable 
Might  with  his  perfect  loveliness  compete; 
Yet  not  less  fair  than  proud,  as  poets  tell. 
Seeing  that  arrogance  and  beauty  meet 
Most  times,  and  thus  full  well  with  mickle  woe 
The  laity  of  love  is  taught  to  know. 

So  that  the  Empress  of  the  Orient 

Doting  upon  Narcissus  beyond  measure, 

And  finding  him  on  love  so  little  bent, 

So  cruel  and  so  careless  of  all  pleasure, 

Poor  wretch,  her  dolorous  days  in  weeping  spent, 

Craving  from  morn  till  eve  of  love  the  treasure, 

Praying  vain  prayers  of  power  from  Heaven  to  turn 

The  very  sun,  and  make  him  cease  to  burn. 

Yet  all  these  words  she  cast  upon  the  wind; 
For  he,  heart-hardened,  would  not  hear  her  moan, 
More  than  the  asp,  both  deaf  to  charms  and  blind. 
Wherefore  by  slow  degrees  more  feeble  grown, 
Toward  death  she  daily  dwindling  sank  and  pined; 
But  ere  she  died,  to  Love  she  cried  alone, 
Pouring  sad  sighs  forth  with  her  latest  breath, 
-For  vengeance  for  her  undeserved  death. 

And  this  Love  granted:  for  beside  the  stream 

Of  which  I  spoke,  Narcissus  happed  to  stray 

While  hunting,  and  perceived  its  silvery  gleam; 

Then  having  chased  the  deer  a  weary  way, 

He  leaned  to  drink,  and  saw  as  though  in  dream, 

His  face,  ne'er  seen  by  him  until  that  day; 

And  as  he  gazed,  such  madness  round  him  floated. 

That  with  fond  love  on  his  fair  self  he  doted. 


RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Whoever  heard  so  strange  a  story  told  ? 
Justice  of  Love!  how  true,  how  strong  it  Is! 
Now  he  stands  sighing  by  the  fountain  cold 
For  what  he  hath,  yet  never  can  be  his! 
He  that  was  erst  so  hard  as  stone  of  old, 
Whom  ladies  like  a  god  on  bended  knees 
Devoutly  wooed,  imploring  him  for  grace, 
Now  dies  of  vain  desire  for  his  own  face. 

Poring  upon  his  perfect  countenance, 
Which  on  this  earth  hath  ne'er  a  paragon, 
He  pined  in  deep  desire's  extravagance, 
Little  by  little,  like  a  lily  blown, 
Or  like  a  cropped  rose;  till,  poor  boy,  the  glance, 
Of  his  black  eyes,  his  cheek's  vermilion, 
His  snowy  whiteness,  and  his  gleeful  mirth 
Death  froze  who  freezes  all  things  upon  earth. 

Then  by  sad  misadventure  through  the  glade 

The  fairy  Silvanella  took  her  way; 

And  on  the  spot  where  now  this  tomb  is  made, 

Mid  flowers  the  dead  youth  very  beauteous  lay: 

She,  marveling  at  his  fair  face,  wept  and  stayed 

In  sore  discomfiture  and  cold  dismay; 

Nor  could  she  quit  the  place,  but  slowly  came 

To  pine  and  waste  for  him  with  amorous  flame. 

Yea,  though  the  boy  was  dead,  for  him  she  burned: 
Pity  and  grief  her  gentle  soul  o'erspread: 
Beside  him  on  the  grass  she  lay  and  mourned, 
Kissing  his  clay-cold  lips  and  mouth  and  head. 
But  at  the  last  her  madness  she  discerned, 
To  love  a  corpse  wherefrom  the  soul  had  fled: 
Yet  knows  she  not,  poor  wretch,  her  doom  to  shun; 
She  fain  would  love  not,  yet  she  must  love  on. 

When  all  the  night  and  all  the  following  day 

Were  wasted  in  the  torrent  of  her  woes, 

A  comely  tomb  of  marble  fair  the  Fay 

Built  by  enchantment  in  the  flowery  close; 

Nor  ever  from  that  station  would  she  stray, 

But  wept  and  mourned;  till  worn  by  weary  throes, 

Beside  the  font  within  a  little  space 

Like  snow  before  the  sun  she  pined  apace. 


ROMANTIC  AND   HELLENIC   FANCY,  487 

Yet  for  relief,  or  that  she  might  not  rue 
Alone  the  luckless  doom  which  made  her  die, 
E'en  mid  the  pangs  of  love  such  charms  she  threw 
Upon  the  font  in  her  malignity, 
That  all  who  passing  toward  the  water  drew 
And  gazed  thereon,  perchance  with  listless  eye, 
Must  in  the  depth  see  maiden  faces  fair, 
Graceful  and  soul-inthralling  mirrored  there. 

They  in  their  brows  have  beauty  so  entire 
That  he  who  gazes  cannot  turn  to  fly, 
But  in  the  end  must  fade  of  mere  desire, 
And  in  that  field  lay  himself  down  to  die. 
Now  it  so  chanced  that  by  misfortune  dire 
A  king,  wise,  gentle,  ardent,  passed  thereby, 
Together  with  his  true  and  loving  dame; 
Larbin  and  Calidora,  such  their  name. 


In  these  stanzas  the  old  vain  passion  of  Narcissus 
for  his  own  beauty  lives  again  a  new  life  of  romantic 
poetry.  That  the  enchantment  of  the  boy's  fascination, 
prolonged  through  Silvanella's  mourning  for  his  death, 
should  linger  for  ever  after  in  the  font  that  was  his 
tomb,  is  a  peculiarly  modern  touch  of  mysterious  fancy. 
This  part  of  the  romance  has  little  in  common  with 
the  classic  tale  of  Salmacis;  it  is  far  more  fragile 
and  refined.  The  Greeks  did  not  carry  their  human 
sympathy  with  nature,  deep  and  loyal  as  indeed  it  was, 
so  far  into  the  border-land  of  sensual  and  spiritual 
things.  Haunted  hills,  like  the  Venusberg  of  Tann- 
hauser's  legend;  haunted  waters,  like  Morgana's  lake 
in  Boiardo's  poem;  the  charmed  rivers  and  fountains 
of  naiads,  where  knights  lose  their  memory  and  are  in- 
closed in  crystal  prison-caves;  these  are  essentially 
modern,  the  final  flower  and  blossom  of  the  medieval 
fancy,  unfolding  stores  of  old  mythology  and  half- for 


j88  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

gotten  emblems  to  the  light  of  day  in  art.1  For  their 
perfection  it  was  needful  that  the  gods  of  Hellas 
should  have  died,  and  that  the  phantoms  of  old-world 
divinities  should  linger  in  dreams  and  reveries  about 
the  shores  of  young  romance. 

Boiardo's  treatment  of  magic  is  complementary  to 
his  use  of  classical  mythology.  He  does  not  employ 
this  important  element  of  medieval  art  in  its  sim- 
plicity, but  adapts  it  to  the  nature  of  his  own  imagina- 
tion, adding,  as  it  were,  a  new  quality  by  the  process 
of  assimilation.  Some  of  his  machinery  belongs,  in- 
deed, to  the  poems  of  his  predecessors,  or  is  framed  in 
harmony  with  their  spirit.  The  enchantment  of  Dur- 
lindana  and  Baiardo;  the  invulnerability  of  Orlando, 
Ferraguto,  and  other  heroes;  the  wizardry  of  Mala- 
gise,  Mambrino's  helmet,  Morgana's  stag,  the  horse 
Rabicano,  Argalia's  lance,  Angelica's  ring,  and  the 
countless  dragons  and  giants  which  Boiardo  creates 
at  pleasure,  may  be  mentioned  in  this  category.  But 
it  is  otherwise  with  the  gardens  of  Falerina  and 
Dragontina,  the  sublacustrine  domain  of  Fata  Mor- 
gana, and  the  caverns  of  the  Naiades.  These,  how- 
ever much  they  may  have  once  belonged  to  medieval 
tradition,  have  been  alchemized  by  the  imagination  of 
the  poet  of  the  Renaissance.  They  are  glimpses  into 
ideal  fairyland,  which  Ariosto  and  Tasso  could  but 
refine  upon  and  vary  in  their  famous  gardens  of  Alcina 
and  Armida.  Boiardo's  use  of  the  old  tradition  of 
Merlin's  fountain,  and  the  other  well  of  Cupid  feigned 
by  him  beside  it,  might  again  be  chosen  to  illustrate 
his  free  poetic  treatment  of  magical  motives.  When 
|  See  II.  xxxi.  xlv.j  IIL  L  IL 


MAGIC,    ALLEGORY,    RELIGION.  489 

he  trespasses  on  these  enchanted  regions,  then  and 
then  only  does  he  approach  allegory.  The  quest  of 
the  tree  guarded  by  Medusa  in  Tisbina's  story;  the 
achievement  by  Orlando  of  Morgana's  garden,  where 
Penitence  and  Fortune  play  their  parts;  and  Rinaldo's 
encounter  with  Cupid  in  the  forest  of  Ardennes,  have 
obviously  allegorical  elements.  Yet  the  hidden  mean- 
ing is  in  each  case  less  important  than  the  adventure; 
and  the  same  may  be  said  about  the  highly  tragic 
symbolism  of  the  monster  in  the  Rocca  Crudele.1  Boi- 
ardo  had  too  vivid  a  sympathy  with  nature  and  hu-  ) 
manity  to  appreciate  the  mysteries  which  allured  the 
Northern  poets  of  Parzival,  the  Sangraal,  and  the  faery 
Queen.  When  he  lapses  into  allegory,  it  is  with  him 
a  sign  of  weakness.  Akin,  perhaps,  to  this  disregard 
for  parable  is  the  freedom  of  his  spirit  from  all  super- 
stition. The  religion  of  his  knights  is  bluff,  simple, 
and  sincere,  in  no  sense  savoring  of  the  cloister  and 
the  cowl.  A  high  sense  of  truth  and  personal  honor, 
indifference  to  life  for  life's  sake,  profound  humility  in 
danger,  charity  impelling  men  of  power  to  succor  the 
oppressed  and  feeble,  are  the  fruits  of  their  piety.  But 
of  penance  for  sins  of  the  flesh,  of  ceremonial  obser- 
vances, of  visions  and  fasts,  of  ascetic  discipline  and 
wonder  -  working  images,  of  all  the  ecclesiastical 
trumpery  with  which  the  pseudo-Turpin  is  filled,  and 
which  contaminates  even  the  Mort  d'  Arthur  of  our 
heroic  Mallory,  we  read  nothing. 

In   taking   up   the   thread   of   Boiardo's   narrative, 
Ariosto  made  use  of  all  his  predecessor  had  invented, 

»  See  I.  viiS.  56  et  seq.    The  whole  tale  of  Grifone  and  Marchino  In 

that  Canto  is  horrible. 


490  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

He  adopted  the  machinery  of  the  two  fountains,  the 
lance  of  Argalia,  Angelica's  ring,  Rabicane,  and  the 
magic  arts  of  Atalante.  The  characters  of  the  Innam- 
orato  reappear  with  slight  but  subtle  changes  and  with 
somewhat  softened  names  in  the  Furioso.1  Ariosto, 
again,  followed  Boiardo  closely  in  his  peculiar  method 
of  interweaving  novelle  with  the  main  narrative;  of 
suspending  one  story  to  resume  another  at  a  critical 
moment;  of  prefacing  his  cantos  with  reflections,  and 
of  concluding  them  with  a  courteous  license.2  Lastly, 
Ariosto  is  at  great  pains,  while  connecting  his  poem 
with  the  Innamorato,  to  make  it  intelligible  by  giving 
short  abstracts  at  intervals  of  the  previous  action. 
Yet  throughout  this  long  laborious  work  of  continua- 
tion he  preserves  a  studied  silence  respecting  the  poet 
to  whom  he  owed  so  much.  Was  this  due  to  the 
desire  of  burying  Boiardo's  fame  beneath  his  own  ? 
Did  he  so  contrive  that  the  contemporary  repute  of 
the  Innamorato  should  serve  to  float  his  Furioso  and 
then  be  forgotten  by  posterity?  If  so,  he  calculated 

>  On  Ariosto 's  treatment  of  Boiardo's  characters  there  is  much  ex- 
cellent criticism  in  Pio  Rajna's  Le  Fonti  dell'  Orlando  Furioso  (Fi- 
renze,  Sansoni,  1876),  pp.  43-53. 

*  I  do  not  mean  that  other  poets — Pulci  and  Bello,  for  example — had 
not  interwoven  episodical  novelle.  The  latter's  poem  of  Mambrianc 
owes  all  its  interest  to  the  episodes,  and  many  of  its  introductory  re- 
flections are  fair  specimens  of  the  discursive  style.  But  the  peculiarity 
of  Boiardo,  as  followed  by  Ariosto,  consisted  in  the  art  of  subordinating 
these  subsidiary  motives  to  the  main  design.  Neither  Pulci  nor  Bello 
showed  any  true  sense  of  poetical  unity.  It  may  here  be  parenthetically 
remarked  that  Francesco  Bello,  a  native  of  Ferrara,  called  II  Cieco  be- 
cause of  his  blindness,  recited  his  Mambriano  at  the  Mantuan  Court  of 
the  Gonzagas.  It  was  not  printed  till  after  his  death  in  1509.  This  poem 
consists  of  a  series  of  tales,  loosely  stitched  together,  each  canto  con- 
taining just  enough  to  stimulate  the  attention  of  an  idle  audience.  Rl- 
naldo.  Astolfo,  and  Mambriano,  king  of  Bithynia,  play  prominent  parts 
in  the  action. 


PATE    OF   THE   INNAMORATO.  491 

wisely;  for  this  is  what  almost  immediately  happened. 
Though  the  Orlando  Innamorato  was  printed  four 
times  before  1613 — once  at  Venice  in  1486,  once  at 
Scandiano  in  1496,  and  again  at  Venice  in  i5o6,  i5n, 
and  1 5 1 3 — and  though  it  continued  to  be  reprinted  at 
Venice  through  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
yet  the  sudden  silence  of  the  press  after  this  period 
shows  that  the  Furioso  had  eclipsed  Boiardo's  fame.  ' 
Still  the  integral  connection  between  the  two  poems 
could  not  be  overlooked;  and  just  about  the  period  of 
Ariosto's  death,  Francesco  Berni  conceived  the  notion 
of  rewriting  Boiardo's  epic  with  the  expressed  inten- 
tion of  correcting  its  diction  and  rendering  it  more 
equal  in  style  to  the  Orlando  Furioso.  This  rifaci- 
mento  was  published  in  1641,  after  his  death.  The 
mysterious  circumstances  that  attended  its  publication, 
and  the  nature  of  the  changes  introduced  by  Berni 
into  the  substance  of  Boiardo's  poem,  will  be  touched 
upon  when  we  arrive  at  this  illustrious  writer  of  bur- 
lesque verse.  It  is  enough  to  mention  here  that 
Berni's  version  was  printed  twice  between  1641  and 
1645,  and  that  then,  like  the  original,  it  fell  into  com- 
parative oblivion  till  the  end  of  the  last  century. 
Meanwhile  the  second  rifacimento  by  Domenichi  ap- 
peared in  1 546;  and  though  this  new  issue  was  a  mere 
piece  of  impudent  book-making,  it  superseded  Berni's 
masterpiece  during  the  next  two  hundred  years.  The 
critics  of  the  last  century  rediscovered  Berni's  rifaci- 
mento, and  began  to  quote  Boiardo's  poem  under  his 
name,  treating  the  real  author  as  an  ignorant  and  un- 
couth writer  of  a  barbarous  dialect.  Thus  one  of  the 
most  original  poets  of  the  fifteenth  century,  to  whom 


492  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

Italy  owes  the  form  and  substance  of  the  Furioso,  has 
been  thrust  aside  and  covered  with  contempt,  by  a 
curious  irony  of  fortune,  owing  to  the  very  qualities 
that  ought  to  have  insured  his  immortality.  Used 
by  Ariosto  as  the  ladder  for  ascending  to  Parnassus; 
by  Berni  as  an  exercising  ground  for  the  display  of 
style;  by  Domenichi  as  the  means  of  getting  his  name 
widely  known,  the  Orlando  Innamorato  served  any 
purposes  but  that  of  its  great  author's  fame.  Panizzi, 
by  reprinting  the  original  poem  along  with  the  Orlando 
Furioso,  restored  Boiardo  at  length  to  his  right  place 
in  Italian  literature.  From  that  time  forward  it  has 
been  impossible  to  overlook  his  merits  or  to  under- 
estimate Ariosto's  obligations  to  so  gifted  and  original 
a  master. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

ARlUbTO. 

Ancestry  and  Birth  of  Ariosto — His  Education — His  Father's  Death — 
Life  at  Reggio — Enters  Ippolito  d'  Este's  Service — Character  of  the 
Cardinal — Court  Life — Composition  and  Publication  of  the  Furioso 
— Quiet  Life  at  Ferrara — Comedies — Governorship  of  Garfagnana — 
His  Son  Virginio — Last  Eight  Years — Death — Character  and  Habits 
— The  Satires — Latin  Elegies  and  Lyrics — Analysis  of  the  Satires — 
Ippolito's  Service — Choice  of  a  Wife — Life  at  Court  and  Place-hunt- 
ing— Miseries  at  Garfagnana — Virginio's  Education — Autobiograph- 
ical and  Satirical  Elements — Ariosto's  Philosophy  of  Life  —  Minor 
Poems — Alessandra  Benucci — Ovidian  Elegies — Madrigals  and  Son- 
nets— Ariosto's  Conception  of  Love. 

ARIOSTO'S  family  was  ancient  and  of  honorable  station 
in  the  Duchy  of  Ferrara.  His  father,  Nicol6,  held 
offices  of  trust  under  Ercole  I.,  and  in  the  year  1472 
was  made  Governor  of  Reggio,  where  he  acquired 
property  and  married.  His  wife,  Daria  Maleguzzi, 
gave  birth  at  Reggio  in  1474  to  their  first-born,  Lodo- 
vico,  the  poet.  At  Reggio  the  boy  spent  seven  years 
of  childhood,  removing  with  his  father  in  1481  to 
Rovigo.  His  education  appears  to  have  been  carried 
on  at  Ferrara,  where  he  learned  Latin  but  no  Greek. 
This  ignorance  of  Greek  literature  placed  him,  like 
Machiavelli,  somewhat  at  a  disadvantage  among  men 
of  culture  in  an  age  that  set  great  store  upon  the 
knowledge  of  both  ancient  languages.  He  was  des- 
tined for  a  legal  career;  but,  like  Petrarch  and  Boc- 
caccio, after  spending  some  useless  years  in  unconge- 


494  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

nial  studies,  Ariosto  prevailed  upon  his  father  to 
allow  him  to  follow  his  strong  bent  for  literature.  In 
1 5oo  Nicolo  Ariosto  died,  leaving  a  family  of  five  sons 
and  five  daughters,  with  property  sufficient  for  the 
honor  of  his  house  but  scarcely  adequate  to  the  needs 
of  his  numerous  children.  Lodovico  was  the  eldest. 
He  therefore  found  himself  at  the  age  of  twenty-six 
in  the  position  of  father  to  nine  brothers  and  sisters, 
for  whose  education,  start  in  life,  and  suitable  settle- 
ment, he  was  called  on  to  arrange.  The  administra- 
tion of  his  father's  estate,  and  the  cares  thus  early 
thrust  upon  him,  made  the  poet  an  exact  man  of 
business,  and  brought  him  acquainted  with  real  life 
under  its  most  serious  aspects.  He  discharged  his 
duties  with  prudence  and  fidelity;  managing  by  econ- 
omy to  provide  portions  for  his  sisters  and  honor- 
able maintenance  for  his  brothers  out  of  their  joint 
patrimony. 

The  first  three  years  after  his  father's  death  were 
spent  by  Ariosto  in  the  neighborhood  of  Reggio,  and 
to  this  period  of  his  life  we  may  perhaps  refer  some  of 
the  love-affairs  celebrated  in  his  Latin  poems.  He  held 
the  Captaincy  of  Canossa,  a  small  sinecure  involving  no 
important  duties,  since  the  Castle  of  Canossa  was  even 
in  those  days  a  ruin.  In  1603  he  entered  the  service 
of  Cardinal  Ippolito  d'  Este,  with  whom  he  remained 
until  1617.  He  was  placed  upon  the  list  of  the  Car- 
dinal's extraordinary  servants,  to  be  employed  in 
matters  of  confidence  and  delicacy,  involving  frequent 
journeys  to  all  parts  of  Italy  and  ceremonial  embassies. 
His  pay  seems  to  have  been  fixed  at  240  lire  marche 
sane,  corresponding  to  about  1 200  francs,  charged  upon 


YOUTH  AND    COURT  SERVICE.  495 

the  Archiepiscopal  Chancery  of  Milan.1  This  salary, 
had  it  been  regularly  paid,  would  have  suffered  to 
maintain  the  poet  in  decent  comfort;  but  he  had  con- 
siderable difficulty  from  time  to  time  in  realizing  the 
sums  due  to  him.  Ippolito  urged  him  to  take  orders, 
no  doubt  with  a  view  of  securing  better  emoluments 
from  benefices  that  could  only  be  conferred  upon  a 
member  of  the  priesthood.  But  Ariosto  refused  to 
enter  a  state  of  life  for  which  he  felt  no  vocation.3 
The  Cardinal  Deacon  of  S.  Lucia  in  Silice  was  one  of 
those  secular  princes  of  the  Church,  addicted  to  worldly 
pleasures,  profuse  in  personal  expenditure,  with  more 
inclination  for  the  camp  and  the  hunting-field  than  for 
the  duties  of  his  station,  who  since  the  days  of  Sixtus 
IV.  had  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  society  of 
the  Italian  Courts.  He  was  of  distinguished  beauty; 
and  his  military  courage,  like  that  of  the  Cardinal 
Ippolito  de'  Medici,  was  displayed  in  the  Hungarian 
campaign  against  the  Turks.  With  regard  to  his  char- 
acter and  temper,  it  may  suffice  to  remind  the  reader 
how,  in  a  fit  of  jealous  passion,  he  hired  assassins  to 
put  out  his  natural  brother  Giulio's  eyes.  That  Ippolito 
d'  Este  did  not  share  the  prevailing  enthusiasm  of  his 
age  for  literary  culture,  seems  pretty  clear;  and  he  failed 
to  discern  the  unique  genius  of  the  man  whom  he  had 
chosen  for  his  confidential  agent.  Ariosto  complains 
that  he  was  turned  into  a  common  courier  and  forced 
to  spend  his  days  and  nights  upon  the  road  by  the 
master  upon  whom,  at  the  expense  of  truth  and  reason, 

1  See  Satire,  i.  100-102;  ii.  109-111. 

*  See  Satire,  i.  113-123,  for  his  reasons.     He  seems  chiefly  to  have 
dreaded  the  loss  of  personal  liberty,  if  he  took  orders. 


496  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

he  conferred  an  immortality  of  fame  in  his  great  poem. 
Yet  it  would  not  be  fair  to  echo  the  commonplace 
invectives  against  the  Cardinal  for  illiberality  and 
ingratitude.  Ariosto  knew  the  nature  of  his  patron 
when  he  entered  his  service,  and  Ippolito  did  not  hire 
a  student  but  an  active  man  of  business  for  his  work. 
It  was  an  arrangement  of  convenience  on  both  sides,  to 
which  the  poet  would  never  have  stooped  had  his  private 
means  sufficed,  or  had  the  conditions  of  Italian  society 
offered  any  decent  career  for  a  gentleman  outside  the 
circle  of  the  Court.  Moreover,  it  was  not  until  after 
their  final  rupture,  caused  by  Ariosto's  refusal  to  un- 
dertake the  Hungarian  expedition  in  his  master's  train, 
that  the  true  greatness  of  the  author  of  the  Furioso  was 
revealed.  How  should  a  dissolute  and  ill-conditioned 
Cardinal  have  discerned  that  a  dreamy  poem  in  MS. 
on  the  madness  of  Orlando  would  live  as  long  as  the 
sEneid,  or  that  the  flattering  lies  invented  by  his 
courier  would  in  after  ages  turn  the  fierce  glare  of 
criticism  and  celebrity  upon  the  darkest  corners  of  his 
own  history  ?  The  old  legend  about  his  brutal  recep- 
tion of  the  Orlando  Furioso  has  been  now  in  part 
disproved.1  We  know  that  he  defrayed  the  expenses 
of  its  publication,  and  secured  the  right  and  profits  of 
its  sale  to  Ariosto.2  There  is  even  an  entry  in  his 
memoranda  of  expenditure  proving  that  he  bought  a 
copy  for  the  sum  of  one  lira  marchesana?  While  de- 
ploring the  waste  of  Ariosto's  time  and  strength  in  the 

1  Ippolito  is  said  to  have  asked  the  poet:  "  Dove  avete  trovato,  mes- 
ser  Lodovico,  tante  corbellerie  ?  "  That  he  did  in  effect  say  something 
of  the  kind  is  proved  by  Satire,  ii.  94-99. 

*  Campori,  Notizie  per  la  Vita,  di  L.  Ariosto  (Modena,  Vincenzi, 
1871),  pp.  55-58. 

»  Ibid.  p.  58. 


ARIOSTO   AND   IPPOLITO   D>   ESTR.  497 

uncongenial  service  of  this  patron,  we  must  acknowl- 
edge that  his  choice  of  Ippolito  was  a  mistake  for 
which  he  alone  was  responsible,  and  that  the  pane- 
gyrics showered  on  such  a  man  are  wholly  inexcusable.1 
When  all  the  circumstances  of  their  connection  are 
taken  into  account,  there  is  nothing  but  the  extreme 
irritation  caused  by  incompatibility  of  temper,  and 
divergence  of  aims  and  interests,  to  condone  the 
poet's  private  censure  of  the  master  whom  publicly  he 
loaded  with  praises.2  The  whole  unhappy  story  illus- 
trates the  real  conditions  of  that  Court -life,  so  glow- 
ingly described  by  Castiglione,  which  proved  the  ruin 
of  Tasso  and  the  disgrace  of  Guarini.  Could  any- 
thing justify  the  brigandlike  brutalities  of  Pietro 
Aretino,  il  flagello  de  Principi,  we  might  base  his 
apology  upon  the  dreary  histories  of  these  Italian 
poets,  soured,  impoverished,  and  broken  because  they 
had  been  forced  to  put  their  trust  in  princes.  When 
there  lay  no  choice  between  levying  blackmail  by 
menaces  and  coaxing  crumbs  by  flatteries,  it  accorded 
better  with  the  Italian  ideal  virtu  to  fatten  upon  the 
former  kind  of  infamy  than  to  starve  upon  the 
latter. 

The  Orlando  Furioso  was  conceived  and  begun  in 
the  year  i5o5.  It  was  sent  to  press  in  i5i5.  Gio- 
vanni Mazzocchi  del  Bondeno  published  it  in  April, 

1  He  penned  the  following  couplet  in  1503,  when  it  is  to  be  hoped 
he  had  yet  not  learned  to  know  his  master's  real  qualities: 
Quis  patre  invicto  gerit  Hercule  fortius  arma, 

Mystica  quis  casto  castius  Hippolyto  ? 

In  another  epigram,  written  on  the  death  of  the  Cardinal,  he  pretends 
that  Ippolito,  hearing  of  Alfonso's  illness,  vowed  his  own  life  for  his 
brother's  and  was  accepted.    See  Opere  Minori,  i.  349. 
•  See  Satires  ii.  viL;  Capita li  i.  ii. 


498  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

1 5 1 6.  A  large  portion  of  the  poet's  life  was  subse- 
quently spent  in  correcting  and  improving  it.  In 
i5i8,  having  freed  himself  from  Ippolito's  bondage, 
Ariosto  entered  the  service  of  Duke  Alfonso  I.  He  was 
termed  cameriere  or  famigliare,  and  his  stipend  was 
fixed  at  eighty-four  golden  crowns  per  annum,  with 
maintenance  for  three  servants  and  two  horses,  paid  in 
kind.1  He  occupied  his  own  house  in  Ferrara ;  and 
the  Duke,  who  recognized  his  great  literary  qualities 
and  appreciated  the  new  luster  conferred  upon  his 
family  by  the  publication  of  the  Furioso,  left  him  in  the 
undisturbed  possession  of  his  leisure.2  The  next  four 
years  were  probably  the  happiest  of  Ariosto's  life; 
for  he  had  now  at  last  secured  independence  and  had 
entered  upon  the  enjoyment  of  his  fame.  The  Medici 
of  Florence  and  Rome,  and  the  ducal  families  of  Urbino 
and  Mantua,  were  pleased  to  number  him  among  their 
intimate  friends,  and  he  received  flattering  acknowl- 
edgments of  his  poem  from  the  most  illustrious  men 
of  Italy.  The  few  journeys  he  made  at  the  request  of 
Alfonso  carried  him  to  Florence,  the  head-quarters  of 
literary  and  artistic  activity.  At  home  the  time  he 
spared  from  the  revision  of  the  Furioso,  was  partly 
'devoted  to  the  love-affairs  he  carried  on  with  jealous 
secrecy,  and  partly  to  the  superintendence  of  the  ducal 
theater.  The  criticism  of  Ariosto's  comedies  must  be 
reserved  for  another  chapter.  It  is  enough  to  remark 
here  that  their  composition  amused  him  from  his  boy- 
hood to  his  latest  years.  So  early  as  1493  he  had 
accompanied  Ercole  I.  to  Pavia  in  order  to  play  before 
Lodovico  Sforza,  and  in  the  same  year  he  witnessed 
>  Campori,  op.  cit.  p.  59.  2  See  Satire  iv.  67-72. 


DUCAL    SERVICE    AND    THE    STAGE.  499 

the  famous  representation  of  the  Mentzchmi  at  Ferrara. 
Some  of  his  earliest  essays  in  literature  were  transla- 
tions of  Latin  comedies,  now  unfortunately  lost.  They 
were  intended  for  representation ;  and,  as  exercises  in 
the  playwright's  art,  they  strongly  influenced  his  style. 
His  own  Cassaria  appeared  for  the  first  time  at  Ferrara 
in  i5o8;  the  Suppositi  followed  in  i5o9,  and  was 
reproduced  at  the  Vatican  in  1619.  It  took  Leo's 
fancy  so  much  that  he  besought  the  author  for  another 
comedy.  Ariosto,  in  compliance  with  this  request, 
completed  the  Negromante,  which  he  had  already  had 
in  hand  during  the  previous  ten  years.  The  Lena  was 
first  represented  at  Ferrara  in  i528,  and  the  Scokistica 
was  left  unfinished  at  the  poet's  death.  What  part 
Ariosto  took  in  the  presentation  of  his  comedies,  is 
uncertain ;  but  it  is  probable  that  he  helped  in  their 
performance,  besides  directing  the  stage  and  reciting 
the  prologue.  He  thus  acquired  a  practical  acquaintance 
with  theatrical  management,  and  it  was  by  his  advice, 
and  on  plans  furnished  by  him,  that  Alfonso  built 
the  first  permanent  stage  at  Ferrara  in  1532.  On  the 
last  day  of  that  year,  not  long  after  its  erection,  the 
theater  was  burned  down.  These  dates  are  important ; 
since  they  prove  that  Ariosto's  connection  with  the 
stage,  as  actor,  playwright,  and  manager,  was  con- 
tinuous throughout  his  lifetime. 

Ariosto's  peaceful  occupations  at  Ferrara  were  inter- 
rupted early  in  1622  by  what  must  be  reckoned  the 
strangest  episode  of  his  career.  On  February  7  in 
that  year,  he  was  nominated  Ducal  Commissary  for  the 
government  of  Garfagnana,  a  wild  upland  district 
stretching  under  Monte  Pellegrino  almost  across  the 


500  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Apennines  from  the  Lucchese  to  the  Modenese  frontiers 
We  find  that  the  salary  allowed  him  by  Alfonso  had 
never  been  very  regularly  paid,  and  that  in  1621  the 
Duke,  straitened  in  means  by  his  warfare  with  the 
Papacy,  was  compelled  to  suspend  it  altogether.1  Al 
the  same  period  the  Communes  forming  what  is  known 
as  Garfagnana  (who  had  placed  themselves  beneath 
the  Marquises  of  Ferrara  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  but  had  lately  suffered  from  Florentine  and 
Papal  incursions)  besought  Alfonso  to  assert  his  suzer- 
ainty of  their  district  and  to  take  measures  for  securing 
ts  internal  quiet.  The  emoluments  of  the  Commissary 
amounted  to  about  930  lire  marchesane,  estimated  at 
something  like  2,300  francs  of  present  value;  and  it 
was  undoubtedly  the  pecuniary  profits  of  the  office 
which  induced  the  Duke  to  offer  it,  and  the  poet  to 
accept  it. 

We  may  think  it  strange  that  so  acute  a  judge  of 
men  as  Alfonso  should  have  selected  the  author  ol 
the  Furioso,  a  confirmed  student,  almost  a  recluse  in 
his  habits,  and  already  broken  in  health,  for  the  gover- 
norship of  a  district  half-ruined  by  foreign  raids  and 
domestic  feuds,  which  had  become  the  haunt  of 
brigands  and  the  asylum  of  bandits  from  surrounding 
provinces.  Yet  we  must  remember  that  Ariosto  had 
already  given  ample  proof  of  his  good  sense  and 
business-like  qualities,  not  only  in  the  administration 
of  his  own  affairs,  but  in  numerous  embassies  under- 
taken for  the  Cardinal  and  Duke,  his  masters.  At 
that  epoch  of  Italian  history  the  name  and  fame  of  an 
illustrious  writer  were  themselves  a  power  in  politics : 

1  See  Satire  v.  172-201. 


GOVERNORSHIP    OF   GARFAGNANA.  501 

and  it  is  said  that  during  Ariosto's  first  journey  into 
Garfagnana,  he  owed  his  liberation  from  the  hands  of 
brigands  to  the  celebrity  of  the  Orlando  Furioso. 
Alfonso  knew,  moreover,  that  the  poet  was  well 
qualified  for  negotiating  with  princes;  and  what  was 
of  grave  practical  importance,  he  stood  in  excellent 
personal  relations  to  the  Medici,  from  whom  as  the 
rulers  of  Florence  the  Garfagnana  was  menaced  with 
invasion.  These  considerations  are  sufficient  to  ex- 
plain Alfonso's  choice.  Nothing  but  necessity  would 
probably  have  induced  Ariosto  to  quit  Ferrara  for  the 
intolerable  seclusion  of  those  barbarous  mountains ; 
where  it  was  his  duty  to  issue  edicts  against  brigands, 
to  hunt  outlaws,  to  punish  murderers  and  robbers,  to 
exact  fines  for  rape  and  infamous  offenses,  to  see 
that  the  hangman  did  his  duty,  and  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment daily  upon  suits  that  proved  the  savage  im- 
morality of  the  entire  population.  The  hopelessness  of 
the  task  might  have  been  enough  to  break  a  sterner 
heart  than  Ariosto's,  and  his  loathing  of  his  life  at  ; 
Castelnovo  found  vent  in  the  most  powerful  of  his 
satires.  He  managed  to  endure  this  uncongenial 
existence  for  three  years,  from  February  20,  1622,  till 
June,  1 525,  sustaining  his  spirits  with  correspondence 
and  composition,  and  varying  the  monotony  of  his  life 
by  visits  to  Ferrara.  It  was  during  his  Garfagnana 
residence  in  all  probability  that  he  composed  the 
Cinque  Canti.  The  society  of  his  dearly-loved  son, 
Virginio — whose  education  he  superintended  and  for 

•  This  is  one  of  the  pretty  stories  on  which  some  doubt  has  lately 
been  cast.  See  Campori,  pp.  105-1 10,  for  a  full  discussion  of  its  proba- 
ble truth. 


50»  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

whom  he  wrote  the  charming  seventh  Satire  to  Pietro 
Bembo — also  served  to  diminish  the  dreariness  of  his 
exile  from  love,  leisure,  and  the  society  of  friends. 

Virginio  was  Ariosto's  natural  son  by  a  woman  of 
Reggio.  He  collected  the  Latin  poems  after  his 
father's  death,  and  prepared  the  Cinque  Canh  for 
Manuzio's  press  in  i545.  He  also  helped  his  uncle 
Gabriele  to  finish  La  Scolastica,  and  wrote  a  few  brief 
recollections  of  his  father.  Ariosto  had  a  second 
illegitimate  son,  named  Giovanni  Battista,  who  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  a  military  career. 

The  last  eight  years  of  Ariosto's  life  were  spent  in 
great  tranquillity  at  Ferrara.  Soon  after  his  reiturn 
from  Garfagnana  he  built  his  house  in  the  Contrada 
Mirasol,  and  placed  upon  it  the  following  characteristic 
inscription  J: 

Parva  sed  apta  mihi  sed  null!  obnoxia  sed  non 
Sordida  parta  meo  sed  tamen  aere  domus. 

About  this  time,  too,  he  married  the  lady  to  whom  for 
many  years  he  had  been  tenderly  attached.2  She  was 
the  Florentine  Alessandra  Benucci,  widow  of  Tito 
Strozzi,  whom  he  first  saw  at  Florence  in  the  year 
1 5 1 3.  The  marriage  was  kept  strictly  secret,  probably 
because  the  poet  did  not  choose  to  relinquish  the 
income  he  derived  from  certain  minor  benefices.  Nor 
did  it  prove  fruitful  of  offspring,  for  Ariosto  left  u< 
legitimate  heirs.  His  life  of  tranquil  study  was  varied 

1  "  Small,  but  suited  to  my  needs,  freehold,  not  mean,  the  fruit  of  my 
own  earnings."  His  son  Virginio  substituted  another  inscription  which 
may  still  be  seen  upon  the  little  house-front:  Sic  domus  hac  Areostea 
propitios  habeat  deos  olim  ut  Pindarica — "  May  this  house  of  Ariosto 
have  gods  propitious  as  of  old  the  house  of  Pindar." 

*  The  date  is  uncertain.  It  was  not  before  1522,  perhaps  even  so 
late  as  1527. 


MARRIAGE   AND    THE   FURIOSO.  503 

only  by  short  journeys  to  Venice,  Abano,  and  Mantua. 
In  1631  he  was  sent  to  negotiate  certain  matters  for 
his  master  in  the  camp  of  the  Marquis  del  Vasto  at 
Correggio.  On  this  occasion  he  received  from  Alfonso 
Davalos  a  pension  of  one  hundred  golden  ducats,  by  a 
deed  which  sets  forth  in  its  preamble  the  duty  of 
princes  to  recompense  poets  who  immortalize  the  acts 
of  heroes.  This  is  the  only  instance  of  reward  be- 
stowed on  Ariosto  for  his  purely  literary  merits.  The 
poet  repaid  his  benefactor  by  magnificent  eulogies 
inserted  in  the  last  edition  of  the  Furioso.1  Between 
the  year  i525,  when  he  left  Garfagnana,  and  1632, 
when  his  poem  issued  from  the  press,  he  devoted  him- 
self with  unceasing  labor  to  its  revision  and  improve- 
ment. The  edition  of  i5i6  consisted  of  forty  cantos. 
That  of  1532  contained  forty-six,  and  the  whole  text 
had  been  subjected  in  the  interval  to  minute  altera- 
tions.2 Not  long  after  the  publication  of  the  revised 
edition  Ariosto's  health  gave  way.  His  constitution 
had  never  been  robust,  for  he  suffered  habitually  from 
a  catarrh  of  the  lungs  which  made  his  old  life  as 
Ippolito  d'  Este's  courier  not  only  distasteful  but 
dangerous.3  Toward  the  close  of  1632  this  complaint 
took  the  form  of  a  consumption,  which  ended  his  days 
on  the  sixth  of  June,  1533.  Great  pains  have  been 
bestowed  by  his  biographers  on  proving  that  he 
died  a  good  Catholic;  nor  is  there  any  reason  to 
suppose  that  he  neglected  the  consolations  of  the 
Church  in  his  last  hours.  He  was  by  no  means  a  man 

>  xv.  28;  xxxiii.  24. 

*  See  Panizzi,  op.  cit.  vol.  vi.  p.  cxix.  for  a  description  of  these  ver- 
bal changes. 

*  See  especially  Satire  ii.  28-51,  and  Capitolo  L 


504  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

to  break  abruptly  with  tradition  or  to  make  an  in- 
decorous display  of  doubts  that  may  have  haunted 
him.  Yet  the  best  Latin  verses  he  ever  penned  were 
a  half-humorous  copy  of  hendecasyllables  for  his  own 
epitaph,  which  seem  to  prove  that  he  applied  Mon- 
taigne's peut-ttre  even  to  the  grave.1 

Of  Ariosto's  personal  habits  and  opinions  we  know 
unfortunately  but  little,  beyond  what  may  be  gathered 
from  the  incomparably  transparent  self-revelation  of  his 
satires.  His  son,  Virginio,  who  might  have  amply 
satisfied  our  curiosity,  confined  himself  to  the  fewest 
and  briefest  details  in  the  notes  transcribed  and  pub- 
lished by  Barotti.  Some  of  these,  however,  are  so 
characteristic  that  it  may  not  be  inopportune  to  trans- 
late them.  With  regard  to  his  method  of  composition, 
Virginio  writes:  "  He  was  never  satisfied  with  his 
verses,  but  altered  them  again  and  again,  so  that  he 
could  not  keep  his  lines  in  his  memory,  and  conse- 
quently lost  many  of  his  compositions.  ...  In  horticul- 
ture he  followed  the  same  system  as  in  composition, 
for  he  would  not  leave  anything  he  planted  for  more 
than  three  months  in  one  place;  and  if  he  sowed 
peaches  or  any  kind  of  seed,  he  went  so  often  to  see 
if  they  were  sprouting,  that  at  last  he  broke  the  shoots 
He  had  but  small  knowledge  of  herbs,  and  used  to 
think  that  whatever  grew  near  the  things  he  had  sown, 
were  the  plants  themselves,  and  watched  them  dili- 
gently till  his  mistake  was  proved  beyond  all  doubt. 
I  remember  once,  when  he  had  planted  capers,  he  went 
every  day  to  see  them  and  was  greatly  delighted  at 
their  luxuriance.  At  last  he  discerned  that  they  were 

«  "  Ludovici  Areosti  humamur  ossa,"  etc.,  Op.  Mia.  L  365. 


PERSONAL    HABITS.  505 

but  elders,  and  that  the  capers  had  not  come  up  at 
all.  .  .  .  He  was  not  much  given  to  study,  and  cared 
to  see  but  few  books.  Virgil  gave  him  pleasure,  and 
Tibullus  for  his  diction;  but  he  greatly  commended 
Horace  and  Catullus,  Propertius  not  much.  .  .  .  He 
ate  fast  and  much,  and  made  no  distinction  of  food. 
So  soon  as  he  came  home,  if  he  found  the  bread  seO 
out,  he  would  eat  one  piece  walking,  while  the  meats 
were  being  brought  to  table.  When  he  saw  them 
spread,  he  had  water  poured  upon  his  hands  and  then 
began  to  eat  whatever  was  nearest  to  him.  .  .  .  He 
was  fond  of  turnips." 

From  the  bare  details  of  Ariosto's  biography  it  is 
satisfactory  to  turn  to  the  living  picture  of  the  man 
himself  revealed  in  his  Satires.  These  compositions 
rank  next  to  the  Orlando  Furioso  in  the  literary  canon 
of  his  works,  and  have  the  highest  value  for  the  light 
they  cast  upon  his  temperament  and  mode  of  feeling. 
Though  they  are  commonly  called  Satires,  they  rather  \ 
deserve  the  name  of  Epistles;  for  while  a  satiric  ele-y 
ment  gives  distinct  flavor  to  each  of  the  seven  poems, 
this  is  subordinated  to  personal  and  familiar  topics  of 
correspondence.  We  learn  from  them  what  the  great 
artist  of  the  golden  age  thought  and  felt  about  the 
times  in  which  he  lived;  what  moved  his  indignation  or 
aroused  his  sympathy;  how  he  strove  to  meet  the 
troubles  of  his  checkered  life;  and  where,  amid  the 
carnival  of  that  mad  century,  he  laid  his  finger  upon 
hidden  social  maladies.  Reading  them,  we  come  to 
know  the  man  himself,  and  are  better  able  to  under- 
stand how,  while  Italy  was  distracted  with  wars  and 
trampled  on  by  foreign  armies,  he  could  withdraw  him- 


506  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

self  from  the  tumult,  and  spend  his  years  in  polishing 
the  stanzas  of  Orlando.  The  Satires  do  not  reveal  a 
hero  or  a  sage,  a  poet  passionate  like  Dante  with  the 
sense  of  wrong,  or  like  Petrarch  aspiring  after  an 
impossible  ideal.  It  is  rather  the  type  of  Boccaccio's 
character,  refined  and  purged  of  sensuality,  with  deli- 
cate touches  of  irony  and  a  more  fastidious  taste,  that 
meets  us  in  this  portrait  of  Ariosto  painted  by  himself. 
His  mental  vision  is  more  lucid,  his  judgment  more 
acute,  his  philosophy  less  indulgent,  and  his  ideal  of  art 
more  exacting;  yet  he,  too,  might  be  nicknamed 
Lodovico  della  Tranquillith.  With  his  head  in  Phili- 
roe's  lap  beside  a  limpid  rivulet,  he  basks  away 
the  summer  hours,  and  cares  not  whether  French  or 
German  get  the  upper  hand  in  Italy.1  Does  it  greatly 
signify,  he  asks  Ercole  Strozzi  in  one  of  his  Latin 
poems,  whether  we  serve  a  French  or  an  Italian  tyrant? 
Servitude  is  the  same,  if  the  despot  be  a  barbarian  only 
in  manners,  like  our  princelings,  or  in  name  too,  like 
these  foreigners.2 

Left  alone  to  study  and  to  polish  verses,  Ariosto 

1  See  the  Opere  Minori,  vol.  i.  p.  336.  Also  Carducci's  eloquent  de- 
fense of  these  Horatian  verses  in  his  essay,  Delle  Poesie  Latine  di  L. 
Ariosto  (Bologna,  Zanichelli,  1876),  p.  82.  The  latter  treatise  is  a  learned 
criticism  of  Ariosto 's  Latin  poetry  from  a  point  of  view  somewhat  too 
indulgent  to  Ariosto  as  a  poet  and  a  man.  Carducci,  for  example,  calls 
the  four  Alcaic  stanzas  in  question  "  una  cosellina  quasi  perfetta,"  though 
they  contain  three  third  lines  like  these: 

Furore  militis  tremendo 

Jacentem  aquae  ad  murmur  cadentis 

Mecumque  cespite  hoc  recumbens. 

Ariosto  was  but  second-rate  among  the  Latin  versifiers  of  his  century.    If 
must,  however,  be  added  that  his  Latin  poems  were  written  in  early  man- 
hood and  only  published  after  his  death  by  Giambattista  Pigna,  in  1553 
*  Op.  Min.  vol.  i.  p.  333: 


LATIN  POEMS   AND    THE    SATIRES.  507 

is  content.  He  is  content  to  flatter  and  confer  im- 
mortality on  the  master  he  despises.  He  is  content 
to  rest  in  one  place,  turning  his  maps  over  when  he 
fain  would  take  a  journey  into  foreign  lands.  Only 
let  him  be,  and  give  him  enough  to  live  upon,  and  he 
will  trouble  no  man,  dispute  no  pretender's  claims, 
raise  no  inconvenient  questions  of  right  and  wrong, 
inflame  the  world  with  no  far-reaching  thoughts,  but 
gild  the  refined  gold  of  his  purest  phrases  and  paint 
the  lilies  of  his  loveliest  thoughts  in  placid  ease.  Italy 
has  grown  old,  and  Ariosto  is  the  genius  of  a  tired, 
world-weary,  disillusioned  age.  What  is  there  worth 
a  struggle  ?  At  the  same  time  he  preserves  his  inde- 
pendence as  a  private  gentleman.  He  passes  free 
judgment  upon  society ;  and  the  patron  he  has  praised 
officially  in  his  epic,  receives  hard  justice  in  his 
Satires.  He  is  frank  and  honest,  free  from  hypocrisy 
and  guile,  genial  and  loyal  toward  his  friends,  upright 
in  his  dealings  and  manly  in  his  instincts.  We  re- 
spect his  candor,  his  contempt  for  worldly  honors, 
and  his  love  of  liberty.  We  admire  his  intellectual 
sagacity,  his  deep  and  wise  philosophy  of  life,  the 
knowledge  of  the  world  so  easily  communicated,  the 
irony  so  pungent  yet  so  free  from  bitterness,  which 
gives  piquancy  to  these  familiar  discourses.  Still 
both  respect  and  admiration  are  tempered  with  some 

Quid  nostra  an  Gallo  regi  an  servire  Latino, 

Si  sit  idem  hinc  atque  hinc  non  leve  servrtium? 

Barbaricone  esse  est  pejus  sub  nomine,  quam  sub 
Moribus  ?  '  At  ducibus,  Dii,  date  digna  mails. 

What  Ariosto  thought  about  the  Italian  despots  finds  full  expression  In 
the  Cinque  Canti,  ii.  5,  6,  where  he  protests  that  Caligula,  Nero.  Phala- 
ris,  Dionysius  and  Creon  were  surpassed  by  them  in  cruelty  and  crime 


508  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY. 

regret  that  the  greatest  poet  of  the  sixteenth  century 
should  have  been  so  easy-going.  Such  is  the  Ariosto 
revealed  to  us  by  the  Satires — not  a  noble  or  sublime 
being:  by  no  means  the  man  to  save  the  State  if 
safety  had  been  possible.  Throughout  the  tragedy  of 
Italy's  last  years  of  freedom  he  moves,  an  essentially 
comic  character,  only  redeemed  by  genius  and  by 
Weltweisheit  from  the  ridicule  attaching  to  a  man 
whose  aims  are  commonplace,  and  whose  complaints 
against  the  world  are  petty.  He  is  not  servile  enough 
to  accept  the  humiliations  of  a  courtier's  lot  without 
a  murmur.  He  is  not  proud  enough  to  break  his 
chains  and  live  in  haughty  isolation.  Hence  in  these 
incomparable  records  of  his  private  opinion,  we  find 
him  at  one  moment  painting  the  discomforts  of  his 
position  with  a  naivete  that  provokes  our  laughter,  at 
another  analyzing  the  vices  of  society  with  luminous 
acumen,  then  shrugging  his  shoulders  and  summoning 
philosophy  to  his  aid  with  a  final  cry  of  Pazienza! 

The  motive  of  the  first  Epistle  is  a  proposed  journey 
to  Rome.1  The  second  enumerates  the  reasons  why 
the  poet  will  not  accompany  Ippolito  d'  Este  to  Hun- 

'  I  have  followed  the  order  of  Lemonnier's  edition,  vol.  i.  of  Open 
Afinori,  Florence,  1857.  But  the  dates  of  composition  are  uncertain, 
and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Ariosto's  own  autograph  can  be  taken 
as  the  basis  of  a  chronological  arrangement.  Much  obscurity  rests  upon 
these  poems.  We  do  not  know,  for  instance,  whether  they  were  sent  to 
the  friends  addressed  in  them  by  name,  or  whether  the  author  intended 
them  for  publication.  The  student  may  profitably  consult  upon  these 
points  the  lithographed  facsimile  of  the  autograph,  published  at  Bologna 
by  Zanichelli  in  1875.  Meanwhile  it  is  enough  to  mention  that  the  first 
epistle  was  addressed  to  Messer  Galasso  Ariosto,  the  poet's  brother,  the 
second  to  Messer  Alessandro  Ariosto  and  Messer  Lodovico  da  Bagno, 
the  third  and  fourth  to  Messer  Annibale  Maleguccio,  the  fifth  to  Mes- 
ser Sismondo  Maleguccio,  the  sixth  to  Messer  Buonaventura  Pistofilo, 
and  the  seventh  to  Monsignore  Pietro  Bembo. 


SUBJECTS    OF    THE    SATIR&S.  509 

gary.  The  subject  of  the  third  is  the  choice  of  a  wife. 
The  fourth  discusses  the  vanity  of  honors  and  wealth 
in  comparison  with  a  contented  mind.  The  fifth 
describes  the  poet's  isolation  in  the  Garfagnana,  and 
contains  a  confession  of  his  love.  In  the  sixth  he 
explains  why  he  does  not  wish  to  go  to  Rome  and 
seek  advancement  from  Clement  VII.  The  seventh 
is  devoted  to  the  education  of  youth  in  the  humani- 
ties, and  contains  a  retrospect  of  his  own  early  life. 
The  satire  of  the  first  is  directed  against  the  ambition 
and  avarice  of  priests,  the  pride  of  Roman  prelates, 
and  the  nepotism  of  the  Popes.  The  passage  de- 
scribing an  ecclesiastic's  levee  is  justly  famous  for  its 
humor;  and  the  diatribe  on  Papal  vices  for  its  force. 
The  second  shows  how  the  dependents  upon  princes 
are  forced  to  flatter,  and  how  they  exchange  their 
freedom  for  the  empty  honor  of  sitting  near  great 
men  at  table.  Ariosto  takes  occasion  to  describe  the 
character  of  Ippolito  d'  Este,  who  cared  for  his  hawks 
and  hounds  more  than  for  the  Muses,  and  who  paid 
his  body-servants  better  than  the  poet  of  Orlando.1 
44 1  owe  you  nothing,  Phcebus,  nor  you,  holy  college 
of  the  Muses!  From  you  I  never  got  enough  to 
buy  myself  a  cloak.  4  Indeed  ?  your  lord  has  given 
you.  .  .  .  '  More  than  the  price  of  several  cloaks, 
I  grant.  But  not  for  your  sake,  Muses,  I  am  certain. 
He  has  told  me,  and  I  do  not  mind  repeating  it,  that 
my  verses  are  just  worth  the  price  of  their  waste 
paper.  He  will  not  give  a  penny  for  my  praises, 
but  pays  me  for  courier's  service.  His  followers  in 


510  RENAISSANCE   IN  ITALY. 

the  barge  or  villa,  his  valet- de-chambre  and  butler,  his 
lackeys  who  outwatch  the  night,  get  paid.  But  when 
I  set  his  name  v/ith  honor  in  my  verse,  he  tells  me  I 
have  whiled  my  time  away  in  ease  and  pleasure — I  had 
pleased  him  better  by  attendance  on  his  person.  If 
you  remind  me  that  I  owe  to  him  a  third  of  the 
Chancery  dues  at  Milan,  I  answer  that  he  gave  me 
this  because  I  ply  both  spur  and  whip,  change  beasts 
and  guides,  and  hurry  over  hills  and  precipices,  risking 
my  life  upon  his  business." 

The  third  Epistle  is  a  masterpiece  of  sound  counsel 
and  ripe  knowledge  of  the  world.  Better  rules  could 
not  be  given  about  the  precautions  to  be  taken  in 
selecting  a  wife,  the  qualities  a  man  should  seek  in  her, 
and  the  conduct  he  should  use  toward  her  after  mar- 
riage. The  satire  consists  in  that  poor  opinion  of 
female  honesty  which  the  author  of  the  Funoso  had  con- 
ceived, not  without  much  experience  of  women,  and  after 
mature  reflection  upon  social  institutions.  It  is  not 
envenomed  like  the  invectives  of  the  Corbaccio,  or 
exaggerated  like  the  abuse  in  Alberti's  dialogues. 
Leaning  back  in  his  arm-chair  with  an  amused  and  quiet 
smile,  the  indulgent  satirist  enunciates  truths  that  are 
biting  only  because  they  condense  the  wisdom  of  an 
observant  lifetime.  He  never  ceases  to  be  kindly; 
and  we  feel,  while  listening  to  him,  that  his  epigrams 
are  double-edged.  The  poet  who  has  learned  thus 
much  of  women,  gives  the  measure  of  his  limited  ca- 
pacity for  noble  feeling;  for  while  he  paints  them  as 
he  finds  them,  he  leaves  an  impression  of  his  own 
emotional  banality.  After  making  due  allowance  for 
this  defect  in  Ariosto's  point  of  view,  we  may 


WOMEN   AND    COURT-LIFE.  511 

rank  the  third  Epistle  among  the  ripest  products  of  his 
intellect.  The  fourth  resumes  the  theme  of  Court-life 
and  place-hunting.  "You  ask  me,  friend  Annibale, 
how  I  fare  with  Duke  Alfonso,  and  whether  I  find  his 
service  lighter  than  the  Cardinal's.  To  tell  the  truth, 
I  do  not  like  one  burden  better  than  the  other;  and 
were  I  rich  enough,  I  certainly  would  be  no  man's 
servant.  But  I  was  not  born  an  only  son,  and  Mer- 
cury was  never  generous  to  my  race.  So  I  am  forced 
to  live  at  a  patron's  charge,  and  it  is  better  to  owe  my 
maintenance  to  the  Duke  than  to  beg  bread  from 
door  to  door.  I  know  that  most  people  think  it  a  grand 
thing  to  be  a  courtier,  but  I  count  Court-life  as  mere 
slavery.  A  nightingale  is  ill  at  ease  in  a  cage,  and 
a  swallow  dies  after  a  day's  imprisonment.  If  a  man 
wants  to  be  decorated  with  the  spurs  or  the  red  hat, 
let  him  serve  kings  or  popes.  For  my  part,  I  care 
for  neither ;  a  turnip  in  my  own  house  tastes  sweeter 
to  me  than  a  banquet  in  a  master's.1  I  would  rather 
stretch  my  lazy  limbs  in  my  armchair  than  be  able 
to  boast  that  I  had  traveled  oyer  half  the  globe.  I 
have  seen  Tuscany,  Lombardy,  Romagna,  the  Apen- 
nines and  Alps,  the  Adriatic  and  the  Mediterranean. 
That  is  enough  for  me.  The  rest  of  the  world  I  can 
visit  at  my  leisure  with  Ptolemy  for  guide.  The 
Duke's  service  has  this  advantage,  that  it  does  not  in- 
terrupt my  studies,  or  take  me  far  from  Ferrara,  where 
my  heart  is  always.  I  think  I  hear  you  laughing  at 
this  point,  and  saying  that  neither  love  of  study  nor  of 
country,  but  a  woman  ties  me  to  my  home.  Well: 

>  See  above,  p.  505,  for  Ariosto's  liking  for  turnips.     He  ate  them 
with  vinegar  and  wine  sauce. 


511  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

I  will  confess  it  frankly.  But  suppose  I  had  gone  to 
Rome  to  fish  for  benefices,  says  some  one,  I  should 
certainly  have  netted  more  than  one,  especially  as  I 
was  Leo's  friend  before  his  merits  or  his  luck  raised 
him  to  the  highest  earthly  station.  I  knew  him  at 
Urbino  when  he  cheered  his  exile  with  Castiglione 
and  Bembo;  and  afterwards  when  he  returned  to 
Florence,  he  bade  me  count  upon  him  like  a  brother 
All  this  is  true;  but  listen  to  a  fable  I  will  tell  you.1 
In  time  of  drought,  when  there  was  no  water  to  be  had 
in  all  the  country,  a  shepherd  found  a  scanty  spring. 
He  drank  of  it  first,  and  next  his  wife,  and  then  his 
children,  and  afterwards  his  servants  and  his  cattle. 
Last  of  all  there  came  a  magpie  he  had  petted  in  old 
days ;  but  the  bird  saw  that  she  had  no  right  to  drink 
of  the  fountain,  for  she  was  neither  wife  nor  child  nor 
hind,  nor  could  she  bring  wealth  to  the  household.2 
It  is  just  the  same  with  me.  Leo  has  all  the  Medici, 
and  all  his  friends  in  exile,  who  risked  their  lives  and 
fortunes  for  him,  and  all  the  priests  who  made  him 
pope,  to  recompense.  What  is  there  left  for  me?  It 
is  true  that  he  has  not  forgotten  me.  When  I  went  to 
Rome  and  kissed  his  foot,  he  bent  down  from  the  holy 
seat,  and  took  my  hand  and  saluted  me  on  both  cheeks. 
Besides,  he  made  me  free  of  half  the  stamp-dues  I  was 
bound  to  pay ;  and  then,  breast-full  of  hope  but  soaked 
with  rain  and  smirched  with  mud,  I  went  and  had  my 

1  Compare  the  apologue  of  the  gourd  and  the  pear-tree  in  the  sixth 
Satire  (55-114).  It  is  to  the  same  effect,  but  even  plainer. 

*  The  word  I  have  translated  "magpie"  is gaza  in  the  autograph. 
This  has  been  interpreted  as  a  slip  of  the  pen  for  ganza;  but  it  may  be  a 
Lombardism  for  gaxxa.  In  the  latter  case  we  should  translate  it  ••  mag- 
pie," .n  the  former  "sweetheart."  1  prefer  to  read  gaxsa,  as  the  ironi- 
cal analogy  between  a  magpie  and  a  poet  is  characteristic  of  Ariosto 


PLACE-HUNTING.  513 

supper  at  the  Ram!1  But  supposing  the  Pope  kept 
all  his  promises  and  put  as  many  miters  on  my  head 
as  Michelangelo's  Jonah  sees  beneath  him  in  the 
Sistine  Chapel,  what  would  this  profit  me?  No 
amount  of  wealth  can  satisfy  desire.  Honors  and 
riches  do  not  bring  tranquillity  of  mind.  True  honor 
is,  to  be  esteemed  an  honest  man,  and  to  be  this 
in  good  earnest;  for  if  you  are  not  really  one,  you 
will  be  detected.  What  is  the  advantage  of  wearing 
fine  clothes  and  being  bowed  to  in  the  market-place, 
if  people  point  you  out  behind  your  back  as  thief  and 
traitor  ?  There  are  dignities  which  are  notorious  dis-  , 
graces ;  and  the  richer  and  greater  a  man  is  who  has 
gained  his  rank  dishonorably,  the  more  he  calls  atten- 
tion to  his  shame." 

Quante  collane,  quante  cappe  nove 
Per  dignitk  si  comprano,  che  sono 
Pubblici  vituperi  in  Roma  e  altrove! 

In  the  sixth  Epistle  written  in  the  Garfagnana, 
Ariosto  still  further  develops  the  same  theme.  His 
friend,  Pistofilo,  had  advised  him  to  go  to  Rome  and 
seek  preferment  from  Clement  VII.  "  What  would 
be  the  use  ?  "  he  argues.  "  I  have  as  much  of  worldly 
honor  as  I  care  for;  and  if  Leo  did  not  find  it  in 
liis  power  to  help  me,  I  cannot  expect  anything  from 
the  other  Medici.  Nay,  my  friend,  bait  your  hook 
with  more  enticing  dainties :  remind  me  of  Bembo, 
Sadoleto,  Giovio,  Vida,  Molza,  Tibaldeo;  in  whose 

1  The  irony  of  this  passage  is  justly  celebrated.  After  all  his  hopes 
and  all  the  pontiff's  promises,  the  poet  gets  a  kiss,  a  trifling  favor,  and 
has  to  trudge  down  from  the  Vatican  to  his  inn.  The  me**a  bolla  is 
supposed  to  refer  to  the  fine  for  entrance  on  the  little  benefice  of  Sant 
Agata,  half  of  which  Leo  remitted. 


514  RENAJSSAXCh    IN   ITALY. 

company  I  might  wander  over  the  seven  hills :  or 
speak  to  me  about  the  libraries  of  Rome.  Not  even 
these  allurements  would  move  me;  for  if  I  had  to 
live  away  from  Ferrara,  I  should  not  be  happy  in 
the  lap  of  Jove.  Existence  is  only  made  endurable 
by  occasional  visits  to  the  town  I  love ;  and  if  the 
Duke  wishes  to  fulfill  my  desires,  he  must  recall  me 
to  himself  and  make  me  stationary  at  Ferrara.  Why 
do  I  cling  so  to  that  place,  you  ask  me  ?  I  would 
as  lief  tell  you  as  confess  my  worst  crimes  to  a  friar. 
I  am  forty-nine  years  of  age,  and  too  old  to  be  the 
slave  of  love."  The  conclusion  of  the  sixth  Epistle 
makes  it  clear  that  his  residence  at  Castelnovo  was 
irksome  to  the  poet  because  it  forced  him  to  be  absent 
from  the  woman  he  loved.  But  the  fifth  is  even 
more  explicit.  "  This  day  completes  the  first  year  of 
my  exile  among  these  barbarous  mountains,  dead  to 
the  Muses,  divided  by  snows,  fells,  forests,  rivers, 
from  the  mistress  of  my  soul!1  I  am  nearly  fifty, 
and  yet  love  rules  me  like  a  beardless  boy.  Well: 
this  weakness  is  at  least  pardonable.  I  do  not  com 
mit  murder;  I  do  not  smite  or  stab,  or  vex  my  neigh- 
bors. I  am  not  consumed  with  avarice,  ambition, 
prodigality,  or  monstrous  lust.  But  in  this  doleful 
place  my  heart  fails  me.  I  cannot  write  poetry  as 
I  used  to  do  at  Reggio  when  life  was  young.  Im- 
prisoned between  the  naked  heights  of  Pania  and 
Pellegrino's  precipices,  the  wild  steeps  of  these  woody 
Apennines  inclose  me  in  a  living  grave.  Here  in  the 
castle,  or  out  there  in  the  open  air,  my  ears  are  deaf- 

1  The  third  elegy  is  a.  beautiful  lamentation  over  his  separation  from 
his  mistress.  Written  to  ease  his  heart  in  solitude,  it  is  more  impas- 
sioned and  less  guarded  than  the  epistle. 


THE    FIF7W    SATIRE.  515 

ened  with  continual  law -suits,  accusations,  brawls. 
Theft,  murder,  hatred,  vengeance,  anger,  furnish  me 
with  occupation  day  and  night.  My  time  is  spent  in 
threatening,  punishing,  persuading,  or  acquitting.  I 
write  dispatches  daily  to  the  Duke  for  counsel  or  for 
aid  against  the  bandits  that  encompass  me.  The 
whole  province  is  disorganized  with  brigandage,  and 
its  eighty-three  villages  are  in  a  state  of  chronic  dis- 
cord. Is  it  likely  then  that  Phoebus,  when  I  call  him, 
will  quit  Delphi  for  this  den  ?  You  ask  me  why  I 
left  my  mistress  and  my  studies  for  so  dolorous  a  cave 
of  care.  I  was  never  greedy  of  money,  and  my  sti- 
pend at  Ferrara  satisfied  me,  until  the  war  stopped  it 
altogether,  as  well  as  my  profits  from  the  Chancery  at 
Milan.  When  I  asked  the  Duke  for  help,  it  so  hap- 
pened that  the  Garfagnana  wanted  a  Governor,  and  he 
sent  me  here  with  more  regard  for  my  necessities  than 
for  the  needs  of  the  people  under  my  care.  I  am 
grateful  to  him  for  his  good  will;  but  though  his  gift 
is  costly,  it  is  not  to  my  mind.  So  I  am  like  the  cock 
who  found  a  jewel  on  his  dungheap,  or  like  the  Vene- 
tian who  had  a  fine  horse  given  him  and  •  could  not 
ride  it." 

The  satirical  passages  in  this  Epistle  can  be  sepa 
rated  from  its  autobiography,  and  furnish  striking 
specimens  of  Ariosto's  style.  In  order  to  show  how 
ill  the  world  judges  of  the  faults  and  follies  of  great 
men,  he  draws  a  series  of  portraits  with  a  few  but  tell- 
ing touches.  Though  furnished  with  fictitious  names, 
they  suit  the  persons  of  the  time  to  a  nicety.  This, 
for  example,  is  Francesco  Guicciardini,  as  Pitti  repre- 
sented him: 


516  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

Ermilian  si  del  denajo  ardente 
Come  di  Alessio  il  Gianfa,  e  che  lo  brama 
Ogn'  ora,  in  ogni  loco,  da  ogni  gente, 

N6  amico  ne  fratel  ne  se  stesso  ama; 
Uomo  d'  industria,  uomo  di  grande  ingegno, 
Di  gran  goverao  e  gran  valor  si  chiama. 

And  here,  without  doubt,  is  the   elder   Lorenzo  de 
Medici l : 

Laurin  si  fa  della  sua  patria  capo, 
Ed  in  privato  il  pubblico  converte; 
Tre  ne  confina,  a  sei  ne  taglia  il  capo; 

Comincia  volpe,  indi  con  forze  aperte 
Esce  Icon,  poi  c'  ha  '1  popol  sedutto 
Con  licenze,  con  doni  e  con  offerte. 

Gl'  iniqui  alzando,  e  deprimendo  in  lutto 
Gli  buoni,  acquista  titolo  di  saggio, 
Di  furti,  stupri  e  d*  omicidi  brutto.    •  ' 

Autobiography  and  satire  are  mingled  in  the  same 
unequal  proportions  in  the  seventh  Epistle,  which  is 
perhaps  the  most  interesting  poem  of  the  series. 
"  Bembo,"  so  begins  the  letter,  "  I  want  my  son  Vir- 
ginio  to  be  well  taught  in  the  arts  that  elevate  a  man. 
You  possess  them  all:  I  therefore  ask  you  to  recom- 
mend me  a  good  Greek  tutor  at  Venice  or  Padua,  in 
whose  house  the  youth  may  live  and  study.  The 
Greek  must  be  learned,  but  also  of  sound  principles, 
for  erudition  without  morality  is  worse  than  worthless. 
Unhappily,  in  these  days  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  teacher 
of  this  sort.  Few  humanists  are  free  from  the  most 
infamous  of  vices,  and  intellectual  vanity  makes  most 
of  them  skeptics  also.  Why  is  it  that  learning  and 
infidelity  go  hand  in  hand?  Why  do  our  scholars 

1  It  may  be  interesting  to  compare  this  scarcely  disguised  satire  with 
the  official  flatteries  of  Canzone  ii.  and  Elegies  i.,  xiv.,  where  Ariostc 
praises  the  Medici,  and  especially  Lorenzo,  as  the  saviours  of  Florence, 
the  honor  of  Italy. 


CHOICE    OF  A    TUTOR.  517 

Latinize  their  names  of  baptism,  changing  Peter  into 
Pierius,  and  John  into  Janus,  or  Jovianus?  Plato  was 
right  when  he  expelled  such  poets  from  his  State 
Little  have  they  in  common  with  Phoebus  and  Am- 
phion  who  taught  civil  life  to  barbarous  races.  For 
myself,  it  stings  me  to  the  quick  when  men  of  my  own 
profession  are  proved  thus  vain  and  vicious.  Find, 
then,  an  honest  tutor  to  instruct  Virginio  in  Greek. 
I  have  already  taught  him  Latin;  but  the  difficulties 
of  my  early  manhood  deprived  me  of  Greek  learning. 
My  father  drove  me  at  the  spear's  point  into  legal 
studies.  I  wasted  five  years  in  that  trifling,  and  it 
was  not  till  I  was  twenty  that  I  found  a  teacher  in 
Gregorio  da  Spoleto.  He  began  by  grounding  me  in 
Latin ;  but  before  we  had  advanced  to  Greek,  the  good 
man  was  summoned  to  Milan.  His  pupil,  Francesco 
Sforza,  went  with  II  Moro,  a  prisoner,  into  France. 
Gregorio  followed  him,  and  died  there.  Then  my 
father  died  and  left  me  the  charge  of  my  younger 
brothers  and  sisters.  I  had  to  neglect  study  and  be- 
come a  strict  economist.  Next  my  dear  relative  Pan- 
dolfo  Ariosto,  the  best  and  ablest  of  our  house,  died ; 
and,  as  if  these  losses  were  not  enough,  I  found  my- 
self beneath  the  yoke  of  Ippolito  d'  Este.  All  through 
the  reign  of  Julius  II.  and  for  seven  years  of  Leo's 
pontificate  he  kept  me  on  the  move  from  place  to 
place,  and  made  me  courier  instead  of  poet  Small 
chance  had  I  of  learning  Greek  or  Hebrew  on  those 
mountain  roads." 

These  abstracts  of  Ariosto's  so-called  Satires  will 
not  be  reckoned  superfluous  when  we  consider  the 
clear  light  they  cast  upon  his  personal  character  and 


5l8  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

philosophy.  The  note  of  sincerity  throughout  is  un- 
mistakable. No  one  can  read  the  pure  and  simple 
language  of  the  poet  without  feeling  that  his  mind  was 
as  transparent  as  his  style,  his  character  as  ingenuous 
as  his  diction  was  perspicuous.  When  he  tells  us,  for 
example,  that  he  does  not  care  for  honors,  that  he 
prefers  his  study  to  the  halls  of  princes,  and  that  a 
turnip  in  his  own  house  tastes  better  than  the  pheasants 
of  a  ducal  table,  we  believe  him.  His  confession  of  un- 
seasonable love,  and  his  acknowledgment  that  he  has 
none  of  the  qualities  of  judge  or  ruler,  are  a  security 
for  equal  frankness  when  he  professes  himself  free 
from  avarice  and  the  common  vices  of  his  age.  His 
satire  upon  women,  his  picture  of  the  Roman  prelates, 
his  portraits  of  great  men,  and  his  condemnation  of 
the  humanists  are  convincing  by  their  very  modera- 
tion. Like  Horace,  he  plays  about  the  heart  instead 
of  wielding  the  whip  of  Lucilius.  This  parsimony  of 
expression  adds  weight  to  his  censure,  and  renders 
these  epistles  more  decisive  than  the  invectives  in 
which  contemporary  authors  indulged.  We  doubt  the 
calumnies  of  Poggio  and  Filelfo  until  we  read  the 
well-considered  passage  of  the  seventh  Epistle,  which 
includes  them  all.1  In  like  manner  the  last  lines  of 
the  fourth  Epistle  confirm  the  Diaries  of  Burchard  and 
Infessura,  while  the  first  contains  an  epitome  of  all 
that  could  be  said  of  Alexander's  nepotism.  These 
familiar  poems  have,  therefore,  a  singular  value  for  the 
illustration  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  in  general  no 
less  than  for  that  of  Ariosto's  own  life.  Furthermore, 
they  are  unique  in  the  annals  of  Italian  literature. 

»  22-69. 


AR10ST&S    SINCERITY.  519 

The  terza  rima  of  Dante's  vision  has  here  become  a 
vehicle  for  poetry  separated  by  the  narrowest  interval 
from  prose.  It  no  longer  lends  itself  to  parody,  as  in 
the  Beoni  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici.  It  is  not  contami- 
nated by  the  foul  frivolities  of  the  Bernesque  Capitoli. 
It  takes  with  accuracy  the  impress  of  the  writer's 
common  thought  and  feeling.  The  meter  designed  to 
express  a  sublime  belief,  adapts  itself  to  the  discursive 
utterance  of  a  man  of  sense  and  culture  in  a  disillu- 
sioned age;  and  thus  we  might  use  the  varying  for- 
tunes of  terza  rima  to  symbolize  the  passage  from  the 
trecento  to  the  cinque  cento,  from  Dante  to  Ariosto, 
from  faith  and  inspiration  to  art  and  reflection. 

Ariosto's  minor  poems,  with  but  one  or  two  excep- 
tions, have  direct  reference  to  the  circumstances  of  his 
life.  They  consist  of  Elegies,  Capitoli,  and  an  Eclogue 
composed  in  terza  rima,  with  Canzoni,  Sonnets,  and 
Madrigals  of  the  type  made  obligatory  by  Petrarch. 
The  poet  of  the  Orlando  was  not  great  in  lyric  verse. 
These  lesser  compositions  show  his  mastery  of  simple 
and  perspicuous  style;  but  the  specific  qualities  of  his 
best  work,  its  color  and  imagery  and  pointed  humor, 
are  absent.  The  language  is  sometimes  pedestrian 
in  directness,  sometimes  encumbered  with  conceits 
that  anticipate  the  taste  of  the  seventeenth  century.1 
Where  it  is  plainest,  we  lack  the  seasoning  of  epigram 
and  illustration  which  enlivens  the  Satires;  and 
though  the  sincere  feeling  a/id  Ovidian  fluency  of  the 
more  ambitious  lyrics  render  them  delightful  reading, 

»  As  when,  for  instance,  he  calls  the  sun  in  the  first  Canton*,  "  1 
omicida  lucido  d'  Achille."  Several  of  the  sonnets  are  artificial  In  their 
tropes. 


530  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

we  acknowledge  that  a  wider  channel  of  description  or 
narrative  or  reflection  was  needed  for  the  full  tide 
of  the  poet's  eloquence.  The  purely  subjective  style 
was  hardly  suited  to  his  genius. 

Only  three  Canzoni  are  admitted  into  the  canon  of 
Ariosto's  works.  The  first  relates  the  origin  of  his 
love  for  Alessandra  Benucci,  wife  of  Tito  Strozzi, 
whom  he  admired  as  wife  and  married  as  widow.  It 
was  on  S.  John's  Day  in  the  year  1613  that  he  saw 
her  at  Florence  among  the  gay  crowd  of  the  mid- 
summer festival.  She  was  dressed  in  black  silk  em- 
broidered with  two  vines,  her  golden  hair  twisted  into 
heavy  braids,  and  her  forehead  overshadowed  with  a 
jeweled  laurel-wreath.  The  brightness  of  the  scene 
was  blotted  out  for  the  poet,  and  swallowed  in  the 
intense  luster  of  her  beauty: 

D*  altro  ch'  io  vidi,  tenni 

Poco  ricordo,  e  poco  me  ne  cale: 

Sol  mi  restb  immortale 

Memoria,  ch'  io  non  vidi  in  tutta  quella 

Bella  citta,  di  voi  cosa  piQ  bella. 

How  much  he  admired  Florence,  he  tells  us  in  the 
fourteenth  elegy,  where  this  famous  compliment 
occurs: 

Se  dentro  un  mur,  sotto  un  medesmo  nome 

Fosser  raccolti  i  tuoi  palazzi  sparsi, 

Non  ti  sarian  da  pareggiar  due  Rome. 

The  second  Canzone  is  supposed  to  be  spoken  by 
the  soul  of  Giuliano  de'  Medici,  Duke  of  Nemours, 
to  his  widow,  Filiberta  of  Savoy.  Elevation  of  concep- 
tion raises  the  language  of  this  poem  to  occasional  sub- 
limity, as  in  the  passage  where  he  speaks  of  immor- 
tality: 


CANZONI  AND   ELEGIES.  $21 

Di  me  t'  incresca,  ma  non  altrtmente 
Che,  s'  io  vivessi  ancor,  t*  incresceria 
D*  una  partita  mia 

Che  tu  avessi  a  seguir  fra  pochi  giorni: 
E  se  qualche  e  qualch"  anno  anco  soggiorni 
Col  tuo  mortale  a  patir  caldo  e  verno, 
Lo  de"i  stimar  per  un  momento  breve, 
Verso  quel  altro,  che  mai  non  riceve 
Ne  termine  ne  fin,  viver  eterno. 

1'he  undulation  of  rhythm  obeying  the  thought  renders 
these  lines  in  a  high  sense  musical. 

Some  of  the  Elegies  have  been  already  used  in 
illustration  of  other  poems.  There  remain  a  group 
apart,  which  seem  to  have  been  directly  modeled 
upon  Ovid.  Of  these  the  sixth,  describing  a  night  of 
love,  and  the  seventh,  when  the  lover  dares  not  enter 
his  lady's  door  in  moonlight  lest  he  should  be  seen,  are 
among  the  finest.  The  ninth,  upon  fidelity  in  love, 
contains  these  noble  lines : 

La  fede  mai  non  debbe  esser  corrotta, 
O  data  a  un  sol  o  data  ancor  a  cento, 
Data  in  palese  o  data  in  una  grotta. 

Per  la  vil  plebe  e  fatto  il  giuramento; 
Ma  tra  gli  spirti  piu  elevati  sono 
Le  semplici  promesse  un  sagramento. 

The  second  is  written  on  the  famous  black  pen  fringed 
with  gold,  which  Ariosto  adopted  for  his  device  and 
wore  embroidered  on  his  clothes.  He  declines  to 
explain  the  meaning  of  this  bearing ;  but  it  is  commonly 
believed  to  have  referred  in  some  way  to  his  love  for 
Alessandra  Strozzi.  Barufifaldi  conjectures  that  her 
black  dress  and  golden  hair  suggested  the  two  colors 
But  since  this  elegy  threatens  curious  inquirers  with 
Actaeon's  fate,  we  may  leave  his  device  to  the  obscurity 


522  RENAISSANCE    IN  ITALY. 

he  sought.  Secrecy  in  respect  to  the  great  passion  oi 
his  life  was  jealously  maintained  by  Ariosto.  His  ink- 
stand at  Ferrara  still  bears  a  Cupid  with  one  finger  on 
his  lip,  as  though  to  bid  posterity  observe  the  reticence 
adopted  by  the  poet  in  his  lifetime. 

The  Madrigals  and  Sonnets  do  not  add  much  to  our 
conception  of  Ariosto's  genius.  It  has  been  well 
remarked  that  while  his  Latin  love-poems  echo  the 
style  of  Horace,  these  are  imitations  of  Petrarch's 
manner.1  In  the  former  he  celebrates  the  facile 
attractions  of  Lydia  and  Megilla,  or  confesses  that  he 
is  inconstant  in  every  thing  except  in  always  varying 
his  loves.2  In  the  latter  he  professes  to  admire  a 
beautiful  soul  and  eloquent  lips  more  than  physical 
charms,  praises  the  spiritual  excellences  of  his  mis- 
tress, and  writes  complimentary  sonnets  on  her  golden 
hair.3  In  neither  case  is  there  any  insincerity.  Ariosto 
never  pretended  to  be  a  platonic  lover,  nor  did  he 
credit  women  with  great  nobility  of  nature.  Yet  on 
the  other  hand  it  is  certain  that  he  was  no  less  tenderly 
than  passionately  attached  to  Alessandra;  and  this 
serious  love,  of  which  the  Sonnets  are  perhaps  the 
record,  triumphed  over  the  volatility  of  his  earlier 
affections. 

It  is  enough  in  this  chapter  to  have  dealt  with 
Ariosto's  life  and  minor  writings.  The  Orlando  Furioso 
considered  both  as  the  masterpiece  of  his  genius  and 
also  as  the  representative  poem  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance, must  form  the  subject  of  a  separate  study. 

'  De  Sanctis,  ii. 

*  See  especially  the  lines  entitled  De  su&  ipsius  mobilltatc* 

8  See  Sonnets  xii.  xi.  xxvi.  xxiii. 


APPENDICES. 

APPENDIX   I. 

Note  on  Italian  Heroic  Verse. 

(See  above,  p.  24.) 

THE  Italian  hendecasyllable  is  an  accentual  iambic  line  of 
five  feet  with  one  unaccented  syllable  over  and  included 
in  the  rhyme.  Thus  the  first  line  of  the  Inferno  may  be 
divided: — 

Nel  mezjzo  del  |  cammin  |  di  nosjtra  vita. 

When  the  verse  is  so  constructed,  it  is  said  to  \>z  piano,  the 
rhyme  being  what  in  English  we  call  double.  When  the 
rhyme  is  single,  the  verse  is  franco,  and  the  rhythm  corre- 
sponds to  that  of  our  heroic,  as  in  the  following  instance 
(Par.  xxv.  IO2): 

II  ver|no  avreb|be  un  me|se  d*  un  |  sol  dL 

When  the  rhyme  is  treble,  the  verse  is  sdrucciolo,  of  which 
form  this  is  a  specimen  (Par.  xxvi.  78): 

Che  ri|fulge|va  piti  |  di  miljle  milia. 

It  is  clear  that  the  quality  of  the  verse  is  not  affected  by  the 
number  of  syllables  in  the  rhyme;  and  the  line  is  called 
hendecasyllabic  because  versi piani  are  immeasurably  more 
frequent  and  more  agreeable  to  the  ear  than  either  verst 
tronchi  or  sdruccioli. 

If  we  inquire  into  the  origin  of  the  meter,  the  first  remark 
we  have  to  make  is  that  lines  of  similar  construction  were 
used  by  poets  of  Provence.  Dante,  for  example,  quotes 
(De  Vulg.  Eloq.  ii.  2)  from  Bertram: 

NOD  puesc  roudar  q*  un  chantar  non  espaija. 


5*4  APPENDIX    I. 

This  fact  will  seem  to  many  minds  conclusive  on  the  point 
in  question.  But,  following  the  investigations  of  recent 
scholars,  we  find  this  form  of  verse  pretty  generally  referred 
to  the  watch-song  of  the  Modenese  soldiers.  Thus  Professor 
Adolfo  Bartoli,  after  quoting  two  lines  of  that  song, 

O  tu  qui  servas  armis  ista  moenia, 
Noli  dormire,  moneo,  sed  vigila, 

adds:  "  qul  apparisce  per  la  prima  volta  il  nostro  verso  endeca- 
sillabo,  regolarmente  accentato."  If  this,  which  is  the  view 
accepted  by  Italian  critics,  be  right,  he  ought  to  have  added 
that  each  line  of  the  Modenese  watch  song  is  a  sdrucciolo 
verse.  Otherwise,  the  rhythm  bears  the  appearance  of  a  six- 
foot  accentual  iambic,  an  appearance  which  is  confirmed  by 
the  recurrence  of  a  single  rhyme  or  assonance  in  a  through- 
out the  poem.  Still  the  strong  accent  on  the  antepenulti- 
mate syllable  of  every  verse  is  sufficient  to  justify  us  in 
regarding  the  meter  as  endecasillabo  sdrucciolo. 

Going  further  back  than  the  Modenese  watch-song  (date 
about  924),  the  next  question  is  whether  any  of  the  classic 
meters  supplied  its  precedent.  By  reading  either  Horatian 
Sapphics  or  Catullian  hendecasyllables  without  attention 
to  quantity,  we  may  succeed  in  marking  the  beat  of  the 
endecasillabo  piano?  Thus: 

Cui  dojno  lep|idum  |  novum  |  libellum  ? 
and: 

Serus  |  in  cce|lum  redjeas,  |  diuque 
Laetus  |  interjsis  po|pulo  |  Quirini. 

When  these  lines  are  translated  into  literal  Italian,  the 
metamorphosis  is  complete.  Thus: 

Cui  donjo  il  lepjido  |  nuovo  |  libretto  ? 
and: 

Tardo  in  ]  ciel  ried'i  e  di|utur|no  serba 
Fausto  il  1  tuo  aspet|to  al  popjol  di  1  Quirlno. 

Even  Alcaics,  unceremoniously  handled  by  a  shifting  of  the 
accent,  which  is  violent  disregard  of  quantity,  yield  like  results. 
Thus: 

Atqui  |  scie  |  bat  qua:  [  sibi  [  barbarus. 


APPENDIX   1.  535 

Or  in  Italian: 

Eppur  |  conob|be  db  |  ch*  II  manjigoldo. 

The  accentual  Sapphics  of  the  middle  ages  throw  some 
curious  light  upon  these  transmutations  of  meter.  In  a 
lament  for  Aquileia  (tenth  century)  we  find  these  lines: 

Bella  sublimis  inclyta  divitiis, 
Olim  fuisti  celsa  aedificiis. 

Here,  instead  of  the  Latin  Sapphic,  we  get  a  loose  sdrucciok 
rhythm.  The  meter  of  the  Serventese  seems  built  upon  this 
medieval  Sapphic  model.  Here  is  an  example l : 

O  Jeso  Cristo,  padre  onipotente, 
Aprestame  lo  core  con  la  mente 
Che  rasonare  possa  certamente 
Un  servientese. 

When  the  humanistic  Italians  tried  to  write  Italian  Sap- 
phics, they  produced  a  meter  not  very  dissimilar.  Thus  in 
the  Certamen  Coronarium*: 

Eccomi,  i'  son  qui  Dea  degli  amid, 
Quella  qual  tutti  li  omini  solete 
Mordere,  e  falso  fuggitiva  dirli 
Or  la  voletc. 

What  seems  tolerably  certain  is  that  the  modern  Italian 
hendecasyllable  was  suggested  by  one  of  the  Latin  eleven- 
syllabled  meters,  but  that,  in  the  decay  of  quantitative 
prosody,  an  iambic  rhythm  asserted  itself.  It  has  no  exact 
correspondence  in  any  classic  meter;  but  it  was  early  devel- 
oped out  of  the  accentual  Latin  measures  which  replaced 
quantitative  meter  in  the  middle  ages.  Signer  Rubieri 
points  out  that  there  may  be  traces  of  it  in  the  verses  of 
Etruscan  inscriptions.*  Nor  is  it  impossible  that  the  rhythm 
was  indigenous,  persisting  through  a  long  period  of  Graeco- 
Roman  culture,  to  reappear  when  the  rustic  language  threw 
out  a  modern  idiom. 

'  Carducci,  Intorno  ad  Alcune  Rime,  p.  107. 

*  Opere  Volgari  di  L.  B.  Alberti,  vol.  i.  p.  cootv. 

»  See  passage  referred  to  above,  p.  5x4,  note. 


APPENDIX    II. 

Ten  Sonnets  translated  from  Folgore  da  San  Gemignano. 
(See  Chapter  I.  p.  55.) 

ON  THE  ARMING  OF  A  KNIGHT. 


This  morn  a  young  squire  shall  be  made  a  knight; 
Whereof  he  fain  would  be  right  worthy  found, 
And  therefore  pledgeth  lands  and  castles  round 
To  furnish  all  that  fits  a  man  of  might 

Meat,  bread  and  wine  he  gives  to  many  a  wight; 
Capons  and  pheasants  on  his  board  abound, 
Where  serving  men  and  pages  march  around; 
Choice  chambers,  torches,  and  wax-candle  light 

Barbed  steeds,  a  multitude,  are  in  his  thought, 
Mailed  men  at  arms  and  noble  company, 
Spears,  pennants,  housing-cloths,  bells  richly  wrought 

Musicians  following  with  great  barony 
And  jesters  through  the  land  his  state  have  brought, 
With  dames  and  damsels  whereso  rideth  he 

IL 

Lo  Prowess,  who  despoileth  him  straightway, 

And  saith:   "Friend,  now  beseems  it  thee  to  strip; 
For  I  will  see  men  naked,  thigh  and  hip, 
And  thou  my  will  must  know  and  eke  obey; 

And  leave  what  was  thy  wont  until  this  day, 

And  for  new  toil,  new  sweat,  thy  strength  equip; 
This  do,  and  thou  shall  join  my  fellowship, 
If  of  fair  deeds  thou  tire  not  nor  cry  nay." 


APPENDIX  II.  5*7 

And  when  she  sees  his  comely  body  bare, 

Forthwith  within  her  arms  she  him  doth  take, 

And  saith:  "These  limbs  thou  yieldest  to  my  prayer: 
I  do  accept  thee,  and  this  gift  thee  make, 

So  that  thy  deeds  may  shine  for  ever  fair, 

My  lips  shall  never  more  thy  praise  forsake. " 

m. 

Humility  to  him  doth  gently  go, 

And  saith:  "I  would  in  no  wise  weary  thee; 

Yet  must  I  cleanse  and  wash  thee  thoroughly, 

And  I  will  make  thee  whiter  than  the  snow. 
Hear  what  I  tell  thee  in  few  words,  for  so 

Fain  am  I  of  thy  heart  to  hold  the  key; 

Now  must  thou  sail  henceforward  after  me; 

And  I  will  guide  thee  as  myself  do  go. 
But  one  thing  would  I  have  thee  straightway  leave: 

Well  knowest  thou  mine  enemy  is  pride; 

Let  her  no  more  unto  thy  spirit  cleave: 
So  leal  a  friend  with  thee  will  I  abide 

That  favor  from  all  folk  thou  shalt  receive; 

This  grace  hath  he  who  keepeth  on  my  side." 

rv. 

Then  did  Discretion  to  the  squire  draw  near, 

And  drieth  him  with  a  fair  cloth  and  clean, 

And  straightway  putteth  him  the  sheets  between, 

Silk,  linen,  counterpane,  and  minevere. 
Think  now  of  this  I     Until  the  day  was  clear, 

With  songs  and  music  and  delight  the  queen, 

And  with  new  knights,  fair  fellows  well-beseen, 

To  make  him  perfect,  gave  him  goodly  cheer. 
Then  saith  she:   "Rise  forthwith,  for  now  'tis  due, 

Thou  shouldst  be  born  into  the  world  again; 

Keep  well  the  order  thou  dost  take  in  view." 
Unfathomable  thoughts  with  him  remain 

Of  that  great  bond  he  may  no  more  eschew; 

Nor  can  he  say,  "I'll  hide  me  from  this  chain," 


5  28  APPENDIX   II. 


V. 

Comes  Blithesomeness  with  mirth  and  merriment, 
All  decked  in  flowers  she  seemeth  a  rose-tree; 
Of  linen,  silk,  cloth,  fur,  now  beareth  she 
To  the  new  knight  a  rich  habiliment; 

Head-gear  and  cap  and  garland  flower-besprent, 
So  brave  they  were,  Maybloom  he  seemed  to  be; 
With  such  a  rout,  so  many  and  such  glee, 
That  the  floor  shook.     Then  to  her  work  she  went, 

And  stood  him  on  his  feet  in  hose  and  shoon; 
And  purse  and  gilded  girdle  neath  the  fur 
That  drapes  his  goodly  limbs,  she  buckles  on; 

Then  bids  the  singers  and  sweet  music  stir, 
And  showeth  him  to  ladies  for  a  boon 
And  all  who  in  that  following  went  with  her. 


THE  CRY  FOR  COURTESY. 

Courtesy!  Courtesy!  Courtesy!  I  call: 
But  from  no  quarter  comes  there  a  reply. 
They  who  should  show  her,  hide  her;  wherefore  I 
And  whoso  needs  her,  ill  must  us  befall. 

Greed  with  his  hook  hath  ta'en  men  one  and  all, 
And  murdered  every  grace  that  dumb  doth  lie: 
Whence,  if  I  grieve,  I  know  the  reason  why; 
From  you,  great  men,  to  God  I  make  my  call: 

For  you  my  mother  Courtesy  have  cast 
So  low  beneath  your  feet  she  there  must  bleed; 
Your  gold  remains,  but  you're  not  made  to  last 

Of  Eve  and  Adam  we  are  all  the  seed: 

Able  to  give  and  spend,  you  hold  wealth  fast: 
111  is  the  nature  that  rears  such  a  breed ! 


APPENDIX    1L  529 


ON   THE   GHIBELLINE    VICTORIES. 

I  praise  thee  not,  O  God,  nor  give  thee  glory, 
Nor  yield  thee  any  thanks,  nor  bow  the  knee, 
Nor  pay  thee  service;  for  this  irketh  me 
More  than  the  souls  to  stand  in  purgatory; 

Since  thou  hast  made  us  Guelphs  a  jest  and  story 
Unto  the  Ghibellines  for  all  to  see: 
And  if  Uguccion  claimed  tax  of  thee, 
Thou'dst  pay  it  without  interrogatory. 

Ah,  well  I  wot  they  know  thee !  and  have  stolen 
St  Martin  from  thee,  Altopascio, 
St  Michael,  and  the  treasure  thou  hast  lost; 

And  thou  that  rotten  rabble  so  hast  swollen 
That  pride  now  counts  for  tribute;  even  so 
Thou'st  made  their  heart  stone-hard  to  thine  own  cost 


TO    THE   PISANS. 

Ye  are  more  silky-sleek  than  ermines  are, 

Ye  Pisan  counts,  knights,  damozels,  and  squires, 
Who  think  by  combing  out  your  hair  like  wires 
To  drive  the  men  of  Florence  from  their  car. 

Ye  make  the  Ghibellines  free  near  and  for, 
Here,  there,  in  cities,  castles,  buts,  and  byres, 
Seeing  how  gallant  in  your  brave  attires, 
How  bold  you  look,  true  paladins  of  war. 

Stout-hearted  are  ye  as  a  hare  in  chase, 
To  meet  the  sails  of  Genoa  on  the  sea; 
And  men  of  Lucca  never  saw  your  face 

Dogs  with  a  bone  for  courtesy  are  ye: 
Could  Folgore  but  gain  a  special  grace, 
He'd  have  you  banded  'gainst  all  men  that  be. 


530  APPENDIX  II. 


ON  DISCRETION. 

Dear  friend,  not  every  herb  puts  forth  a  flower; 

Nor  every  flower  that  blossoms,  fruit  doth  bear; 

Nor  hath  each  spoken  word  a  virtue  rare; 

Nor  every  stone  in  earth  its  healing  power: 
This  thing  is  good  when  mellow,  that  when  sour; 

One  seems  to  grieve,  within  doth  rest  from  care; 

Not  every  torch  is  brave  that  flaunts  in  air; 

There  is  what  dead  doth  seem,  yet  flame  doth  shower. 
Wherefore  it  ill  behooveth  a  wise  man 

His  truss  of  every  grass  that  grows  to  bind, 

Or  pile  his  back  with  every  stone  he  can, 
Or  counsel  from  each  word  to  seek  to  find, 

Or  take  his  walks  abroad  with  Dick  and  Dan: 

Not  without  cause  I'm  moved  to  speak  my  mind. 


ON  DISORDERED    WILL. 

What  time  desire  hath  o'er  the  soul  such  sway 
That  reason  finds  nor  place  nor  puissance  here, 
Men  oft  do  laugh  at  what  should  claim  a  tear, 
And  over  grievous  dole  are  seeming  gay. 

He  sure  would  travel  far  from  sense  astray 
Who  should  take  frigid  ice  for  fire;  and  near 
Unto  this  plight  are  those  who  make  glad  cheer 
For  what  should  rather  cause  their  soul  dismay. 

But  more  at  heart  might  he  feel  heavy  pain 
Who  made  his  reason  subject  to  mere  will, 
And  followed  wandering  impulse  without  rein; 

Seeing  no  lordship  is  so  rich  as  still 

One's  upright  self  unswerving  to  sustain, 
To  follow  worth,  to  flee  things  vain  and  ill. 


APPENDIX   III. 

Translations  from  A  If  s so   Donati. 
(See  Chapter  III.  p.  157.) 

THE  NUN. 

The  knotted  cord,  dark  veil  and  tunic  gray, 

I'll  fling  aside,  and  eke  this  scapulary, 

Which  keeps  me  here  a  nun  immured  alway: 

And  then  with  thee,  dressed  like  a  gallant  gay, 

With  girded  loins  and  limber  gait  and  free, 

I'll  roam  the  world,  where  chance  us  twain  may  carry. 

I  am  content  slave,  scullion-wench  to  be; 

That  will  not  irk  me  as  this  irketh  me ! 

THE  LOVERS. 

Nay,  get  thee  gone  now,  but  so  quietly, 

By  God,  so  gently  go,  my  love, 

That  yon  damned  villain  may  hear  naught  thereof ! 

He's  quick  of  hearing  :  if  he  hears  but  me 

Turn  myself  round  in  bed, 

He  clasps  me  tight  for  fear  I  may  be  sped. 

God  curse  whoever  joined  me  to  this  hind, 

Or  hopes  in  churls  good  merchandise  to  find ) 

THE   GIRL. 

In  dole  I  dree  the  days  all  lonely  here, 
A  young  girl  by  her  mother  shut  from  life, 
Who  guardeth  me  with  jealousy  and  strife: 
But  by  the  cross  of  God  I  swear  to  her, 
If  still  she  keeps  me  pent  up  thus  to  pine, 
I'll  say:   "Aroint  thee,  thou  fell  hag  malign  I" 
And  fling  yon  wheel  and  distaff  to  the  wall, 
And  fly  to  thee,  my  love,  who  art  mine  all  1 


APPENDIX    IV. 

Presepio,    Corrotto,    and   Cantico   del?   Amore 
Supcrardente,   Translated  into  English   Verse. 

(See  Chapter  V.  pp.  291  et  sey.) 

THREE  POEMS  ATTRIBUTED  TO  JACOPONE  DA  TODI. 

THOUGH  judging  it  impossible  to  preserve  the  least  part  of 
Jacopone's  charm  in  a  translation,  I  have  made  versions  of 
the  Christmas  Carol,  the  Passion  Poem,  and  the  Hymn  of 
Divine  Love,  alluded  to  in  chapter  v.,  pp.  291-298.  The 
metrical  structure  of  the  first  is  confused  in  the  original;  but 
1  have  adopted  a  stanza  which  follows  the  scheme  pretty 
closely,  and  reproduces  the  exact  number  of  the  lines.  In 
the  second  I  have  forced  myself  to  repeat  the  same  rhyme  at 
the  close  of  each  of  the  thirty-four  strophes,  which  in  the 
Italian  has  a  very  fine  effect — the  sound  being  ato.  No 
English  equivalent  can  do  it  justice.  The  third  poem  I  ad- 
mit to  be  really  untranslatable.  The  recurrences  of  strong 
voweled  endings  in  ore,  are,  ezza,  ate  cannot  be  imitated. 

THE   PRESEPIO. 

By  thy  great  and  glorious  merit, 
Mary,  Mother,  Maid ! 
In  thy  firstling,  new-born  child 
All  our  life  is  laid. 

That  sweet  smiling  infant  child, 
Born  for  us,  I  wis; 
That  majestic  baby  mild, 
Yield  him  to  our  kiss ! 


APPENDIX    IV.  533 

Clasping  and  embracing  him, 
We  shall  drink  of  bliss. 
Who  could  crave  a  deeper  joy  ? — 
Purer  none  was  made. 

For  thy  beauteous  baby  boy 

We  a-hungered  burn; 

Yea,  with  heart  and  soul  of  grace 

Long  for  him  and  yearn. 

Grant  us  then  this  prayer;  his  tec 

Toward  our  bosom  turn: 

Let  him  keep  us  in  his  care, 

On  his  bosom  stayed  I 

Mary,  in  the  manger  where 
Thou  hast  strewn  his  nest, 
With  thy  darling  baby  we 
Fain  would  dwell  at  rest 
Those  who  cannot  take  him,  see, 
Place  him  on  their  breast ! 
Who  shall  be  so  rude  and  wild 
As  to  spurn  thee,  Maid? 

Come  and  look  upon  her  child 

Nestling  in  the  hay  I 

See  his  fair  arms  opened  wide, 

On  her  lap  to  play  I 

And  she  tucks  him  by  her  side, 

Cloaks  him  as  she  may; 

Gives  her  paps  unto  his  mouth, 

Where  his  lips  are  laid. 

For  the  little  babe  had  drouth, 

Sucked  the  breast  she  gave; 

All  he  sought  was  that  sweet  breast, 

Broth  he  did  not  crave; 

With  his  tiny  mouth  he  pressed, 

Tiny  mouth  that  clave: 

Ah,  the  tiny  baby  thing, 

Mouth  to  bosom  laid ! 


534 


APPENDIX    IV. 

She  with  left  hand  cradling 

Rocked  and  hushed  her  boy, 

And  with  holy  lullabies 

Quieted  her  toy. 

Who  so  churlish  but  would  rise 

To  behold  heaven's  joy 

Sleeping? — In  what  darkness  drowned. 

Dead  and  renegade  ? — 

Little  angels  all  around 
Danced,  and  carols  flung; 
Making  verselets  sweet  and  true, 
Still  of  love  they  sung; 
Calling  saints  and  sinners  too 
With  love's  tender  tongue; 
Now  that  heaven's  high  glory  is 
On  this  earth  displayed. 

Choose  we  gentle  courtesies, 
Churlish  ways  forswear; 
Let  us  one  and  all  behold 
Jesus  sleeping  there. 
Earth,  air,  heaven  he  will  unfold, 
Flowering,  laughing  fair; 
Such  a  sweetness,  such  a  grace 
From  his  eyes  hath  rayed. 

O  poor  humble  human  race, 
How  uplift  art  thou  1 
With  the  divine  dignity 
Re-united  now ! 
Even  the  Virgin  Mary,  she 
All  amazed  doth  bow; 
And  to  us  who  sin  inherit, 
Seems  as  though  she  prayed. 

By  thy  great  and  glorious  merit, 
Mary,  Mother,  Maid ! 
In  thy  firstling,  new-born  child 
All  our  life  is  laid. 


APPENDIX    IV.  53  q 


CORROTTO. 


Messenger.     Lady  of  Paradise,  woe's  me, 

Thy  son  is  taken,  even  he, 
Christ  Jesus,  that  saint  blessed  1 
Run,  Lady,  look  amain 

How  the  folk  him  constrain: 
Methinks  they  him  have  slain, 
Sore  scourged,  with  rods  oppress 
Mary.     Nay,  how  could  this  thing  be? 
To  folly  ne'er  turned  he, 
Jesus,  the  hope  of  me: 
How  did  they  him  arrest? 

Messenger.     Lady,  he  was  betrayed; 

Judas  sold  him,  and  bade 
Those  thirty  crowns  be  paid — 
Poor  gain,  where  bad  is  best. 
Mary.     Ho,  succor !  Magdalen ! 

The  storm  is  on  me:  men 

My  own  son,  Christ,  have  ta'en  ! 

This  news  hath  pierced  my  breast. 

Messenger.     Aid,  Lady  I     Up  and  run  1 

They  spit  upon  thy  son, 
And  hale  him  through  the  town; 
To  Pilate  they  him  wrest 
Mary.     O  Pilate,  do  not  let 

My  son  to  pain  be  set  I 
That  he  is  guiltless,  yet 
With  proofs  I  can  protest 
The  Jews.     Crucify !     Crucify  I 

Who  would  be  King,  must  die. 
He  spurns  the  Senate  by 
Our  laws,  as  these  attest 
We'll  see  if,  stanch  of  state, 
He  can  abide  this  fate; 
Die  shall  he  at  the  gate, 
And  Barab  he  redressed. 


536  APPENDIX    IV. 

Mary,     I  pray  thee,  hear  my  prayer  i 

Think  on  my  pain  and  care  I 
Perchance  thou  then  wilt  bear 
New  thoughts  and  change  thy  quest. 
The  Jews.     Bring  forth  the  thieves,  for  they 
Shall  walk  with  him  this  day: 
Crown  him  with  thorns,  and  say 
He  was  made  king  in  jest. 
Mary.     O  Son,  Son,  Son,  dear  Son  I 
O  Son,  my  lovely  Son  1 
Son,  who  shall  shed  upon 
My  anguished  bosom  rest? 
O  jocund  eyes,  sweet  Son  I 

Why  art  Thou  silent  ?    Son  I 
Son,  wherefore  dost  Thou  shun. 
This  thy  own  mother's  breast? 

Messenger.     Lady,  behold  the  tree ! 

The  people  bring  it,  see, 
Where  the  true  Light  must  be 
Lift  up  at  man's  behest  1 
Mary.     O  cross,  what  wilt  thou  do  ? 
Wilt  thou  my  Son  undo  ? 
Him  will  they  fix  on  you, 
Him  who  hath  ne'er  transgressed  ? 

Messenger.     Up,  full  of  grief  and  bale  1 

They  strip  thy  son,  and  rail; 
The  folk  are  fain  to  nail 
Him  on  yon  cross  they've  dressed. 
Mary.     If  ye  his  raiment  strip, 

I'll  see  him,  breast  and  hip ! 

Lo,  how  the  cruel  whip 

Hath  bloodied  back  and  chest ! 

Messenger.     Lady,  his  hand  outspread 
Unto  the  cross  is  laid: 
Tis  pierced;  the  huge  nail's  head 
Down  to  the  wood  they've  pressed 
They  seize  his  other  hand, 
And  on  the  tree  expand: 
His  pangs  are  doubled  and 
Too  keen  to  be  expressed  1 


APPENDIX    IV.  537 


Lady,  his  feet  they  take, 

And  pin  them  to  the  stake, 
Rack  every  joint,  and  make 
Each  sinew  manifest! 

Mary.     I  now  the  dirge  commence. 

Son,  my  life's  sole  defense  I 
Son,  who  hath  torn  thee  hence  ? 
Sweet  Son,  my  Son  caressed  1 
Far  better  done  had  they 
My  heart  to  pluck  away, 
Than  by  thy  cross  to  lay 
Of  thee  thus  dispossessed  I 

Christ,     Mother,  why  weep'st  thou  so  ? 

Thou  dealest  me  death's  blow. 
To  watch  thy  tears,  thy  woe 
Unstinted,  tears  my  breast 

Mary.     Son,  who  hath  twinned  us  two? 
Son,  father,  husband  true  1 
Son,  who  thy  body  slew  ? 
Son,  who  hath  thee  suppressed  i* 

Christ.     Mother,  why  wail  and  chide  ? 
I  will  thou  shouldst  abide, 
And  serve  those  comrades  tried 
I  saved  amid  the  rest 

Mary.     Son,  say  not  this  to  me  1 

Fain  would  I  hang  with  thee 
Pierced  on  the  cross,  and  be 
By  thy  side  dying  blessed  I 
One  grave  should  hold  us  twain, 
Son  of  thy  mother's  pain  1 
Mother  and  Son  remain 
By  one  same  doom  oppressed  1 

Christ.     Mother,  heart-full  of  woe, 
I  bid  thee  rise  and  go 
To  John,  my  chosen  1 — GO 
Is  he  thy  son  confessed. 
John,  this  my  mother  see: 
Take  her  in  charity: 
Cherish  her  piteously: 
The  sword  hath  pierced  her  breast 


538  APPENDIX    IV. 

Mary.     Son  I  Ah,  thy  soul  hath  flown ! 

Son  of  the  woman  lone  1 

Son  of  the  overthrown  1 

Son,  poisoned  by  sin's  pest! 
Son  of  white  ruddy  cheer  1 

Son  without  mate  or  peer ! 

Son,  who  shall  help  me  here, 

Son,  left  by  thee,  distressed  1 
Son,  white  and  fair  of  face  I 

Son  of  pure  jocund  grace  1 

Son,  why  did  this  wild  place, 

This  world,  Son,  thee  detest  ? 
Son,  sweet  and  pleasant  Son  ! 

Son  of  the  sorrowing  one  1 

Son,  why  hath  thee  undone 

To  death  this  folk  unblessed  ? 
John,  my  new  son,  behold 

Thy  brother  he  is  cold  1 

I  feel  the  sword  foretold, 

Which  prophecies  attest 
Lo,  Son  and  mother  slain ! 

Dour  death  hath  seized  the  twain: 

Mother  and  Son,  they  strain 

Upon  one  cross  embraced. 

Here  the  miserable  translation  ends.  But  I  would  that  I 
could  summon  from  the  deeps  of  memory  some  echo  of  the 
voice  I  heard  at  Perugia,  one  dark  Good  Friday  evenrng, 
singing  Penitential  Psalms.  This  made  me  feel  of  what  sort 
was  the  Corrotto,  chanted  by  the  confraternities  of  Umbria. 
The  psalms  were  sung  on  that  occasion  to  a  monotonous 
rhythm  of  melodiously  simple  outline  by  three  solo  voices 
in  turn — soprano,  tenor,  and  bass.  At  the  ending  of  each 
psalm  a  candle  before  the  high-altar  was  extinguished,  until 
all  light  and  hope  and  spiritual  life  went  out  for  the  damned 
soul.  The  soprano,  who  sustained  the  part  of  pathos,  had 
the  fullness  of  a  powerful  man's  chest  and  larynx,  with  the 
pitch  of  a  woman's  and  the  timbre  of  a  boy's  voice.  He 
seemed  able  to  do  what  he  chose  in  prolonging  and  sustaining 
notes,  with  wonderful  effects  of  crescendo  and  diminuendo 


APPENDIX   IV.  539 

passing  from  the  wildest  and  most  piercing  forte  to  the  ten- 
derest  pianissimo.  He  was  hidden  in  the  organ-loft;  and  as 
he  sang,  the  organist  sustained  his  cry  with  long-drawn 
shuddering  chords  and  deep  groans  of  the  diapason.  The 
whole  church  throbbed  with  the  vibrations  of  the  rising,  fall- 
ing melody;  and  the  emotional  thrill  was  as  though  Christ's 
or  Mary's  soul  were  speaking  through  the  darkness  to  our 
hearts.  I  never  elsewhere  heard  a  soprano  of  this  sort  sing  in 
tune  so  perfect  or  with  so  pure  an  intonation.  The  dramatic 
effect  produced  by  the  contrast  between  this  soprano  and  the 
bass  and  tenor  was  simple  but  exceedingly  striking.  English- 
men, familiar  with  cathedral  music,  may  have  derived  a  some- 
what similar  impression  from  the  more  complex  Motett  of 
Mendelssohn  upon  Psalm  xxii.  I  think  that  when  the  Umbrian 
Laud  began  to  be  dramatic,  the  parts  in  such  a  hymn  as  Jaco- 
pone's  Corrotto  must  have  been  distributed  after  the  manner 
of  these  Perugian  Good  Friday  services.  Mary's  was  un- 
doubtedly given  to  the  soprano;  that  of  the  Jews,  possibly, 
to  the  bass;  Christ's,  and  perhaps  the  messenger's  also,  to 
the  tenor.  And  it  is  possible  that  the  rhythm  was  almost 
identical  with  what  I  heard;  for  that  had  every  mark  of 
venerable  antiquity  and  popular  sincerity. 

I  now  pass  to  the  Hymn  of  Divine  Love,  which  Tresatti 
entitles  Cantico  delV  Amore  Superardente  (Book  vi.  16).  It 
consists  of  three  hundred  and  seventy  lines,  all  of  which  I 
have  translated,  though  I  content  myself  here  with  some 
extracts: 

O  Love  of  Charity! 
Why  didst  thou  so  wound  me  ? 
Why  breaks  my  heart  through  thec, 
My  heart  which  burns  with  Love  ? 

It  burns  and  glows  and  finds  no  place  to  stay; 
It  cannot  fly,  for  it  is  bound  so  tight; 
It  melts  like  wax  before  the  flame  away; 
Living,  it  dies;  swoons,  faints,  dissolves  outright; 
Prays  for  the  force  to  fly  some  little  way; 
Finds  itself  in  the  furnace  fiery-white; 
Ah  me,  in  this  sore  plight, 


540  APPENDIX  nr. 

Who,  what  consumes  my  breath  ? 
Ah,  thus  to  live  is  death  1 
So  swell  the  flames  of  Love. 

Or  ere  I  tasted  Jesus,  I  besought 
To  love  him,  dreaming  pure  delights  to  prove, 
And  dwell  at  peace  mid  sweet  things  honey-fraught. 
Far  from  all  pain  on  those  pure  heights  above: 
Now  find  I  torment  other  than  I  sought; 
I  knew  not  that  my  heart  would  break  for  love ! 
There  is  no  image  of 
The  semblance  of  my  plight  1 
I  die,  drowned  in  delight, 
And  live  heart-lost  in  Love  I 

Lost  is  my  heart  and  all  my  reason  gone, 
My  will,  my  liking,  and  all  sentiment; 
Beauty  is  mere  vile  mud  for  eyes  to  shun; 
Soft  cheer  and  wealth  are  naught  but  detriment; 
One  tree  of  love,  laden  with  fruit,  but  one, 
Fixed  in  my  heart,  supplies  me  nourishment: 
Hourly  therefrom  are  sent, 
With  force  that  never  tires 
But  varies  still,  desires, 
Strength,  sense,  the  gifts  of  Love. 

Let  none  rebuke  me  then,  none  reprehend, 
If  love  so  great  to  madness  driveth  me ! 
What  heart  from  love  her  fortress  shall  defend  ? 
So  thralled,  what  heart  from  love  shall  hope  to  flee  ( 
Think,  how  could  any  heart  not  break  and  rend, 
Or  bear  this  furnace-flame's  intensity  ? — 
Could  I  but  only  be 
Blest  with  some  soul  that  knows, 
Pities  and  feels  the  woes 
Which  whelm  my  heart  with  Love! 

Lo,  heaven,  lo,  earth  cries  out,  cries  out  for  aye, 
And  all  things  cry  thai  I  must  love  even  thus ! 
Each  calls: — With  all  thy  heart  to  that  Love  fly, 
Loving,  who  strove  to  clasp  thee,  amorous: 


APPENDIX    IV.  541 

That  Love  who  for  thy  love  did  seek  and  sigh, 
To  draw  thee  up  to  him,  He  fashioned  us  I—- 
Such beauty  luminous, 
Such  goodness,  such  delight, 
Flows  from  that  holy  light, 
Beams  on  my  soul  from  Love  | 

For  thee,  O  Love,  I  waste,  swooning  away  I 
I  wander  calling  loud  with  thee  to  be  1 
When  thou  departest,  I  die  day  by  day; 
I  groan  and  weep  to  have  thee  close  to  me: 
When  thou  returnest,  my  heart  swells;  I  pray 
To  be  transmuted  utterly  in  thee  I 
Delay  not  then  1 — Ah  me  I 
Love  deigns  to  bring  me  grace  1 
Binds  me  in  his  embrace, 
Consumes  my  heart  with  Love  I 

Love,  Love,  thou  hast  me  smitten,  wounded  sore  I 
No  speech  but  Love,  Love,  Love  I  can  I  deliver! 
Love,  I  am  one  with  thee,  to  part  no  more  1 
Love,  Love,  thee  only  shall  I  clasp  for  ever  1 
Love,  Love,  strong  Love,  thou  forcest  me  to  soar 
Heavenward !  my  heart  expands;  with  love  I  quiver; 
For  thee  I  swoon  and  shiver, 
Love,  pant  with  thee  to  dwell ! 
Love,  if  thou  lovest  me  well, 
Oh,  make  me  die  of  Love  1 

Love,  Love,  Love,  Jesus,  I  have  scaped  the  seas ! 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Jesus,  thou  has  guided  me  1 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Jesus,  give  me  rest  and  peace  1 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Jesus,  I'm  inflamed  by  thee  1 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Jesus  1  From  wild  waves  release  1 
Make  me,  Love,  dwell  for  ever  clasped  with  thee? 
And  be  transformed  in  thee, 
In  truest  charity, 
In  highest  verity, 
Of  pure  transmuted  Love  I 


542  APPENDIX    IV. 

Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  the  world's  exclaim  and  cry  I 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  each  thing  this  cry  returns ! 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  thou  art  so  deep,  so  high: 
Whoso  clasps  thee,  for  thee  more  madly  yearns  1 
Love,  Love,  thou  art  a  circle  like  the  sky; 
Who  enters,  with  thy  love  for  ever  bums  1 
Web,  woof,  art  thou;  he  learns, 
Who  clothes  himself  with  thee, 
Such  sweetness,  suavity, 
That  still  he  shouts,  Love,  Love  1 

Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  thou  giv'st  me  such  strong  pain 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  how  shall  I  bear  this  ache? 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  thou  fill'st  my  heart  amain ! 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  I  feel  my  heart  must  break ! 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  thou  dost  me  so  constrain  1 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  absorb  me  for  Love's  sake  I 
Love-languor,  sweet  to  take  I 
Love,  my  Love  amorous  1 
Love,  my  delicious ! 
Swallow  my  soul  in  Love  I 

Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  my  heart  it  is  so  riven ! 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  what  wounds  I  feel,  what  bliss ! 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  I'm  drawn  and  rapt  to  heaven  I 
Love,  Love,  I'm  ravished  by  thy  beauteousness  1 
Love,  Love,  life's  naught,  for  less  than  nothing  given  I 
Love,  Love,  the  other  life  is  one  with  this  I 
Thy  love  the  soul's  life  is ! 
To  leave  thee  were  death's  anguish  1 
Thou  mak'st  her  swoon  and  languish, 
Gasped,  overwhelmed  in  Love  1 

Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  O  Jesus  amorous  1 
Love,  Love,  fain  would  I  die  embracing  Thee  1 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  O  Jesus  my  soul's  Spouse  1 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  death  I  demand  of  thee  I 
Love,  Love,  Love,  Love,  Jesus,  my  lover,  thus 
Resume  me,  let  me  be  transformed  in  thee  1 
Where  am  I  ?    Love !     Ah  me  1 
Jesus,  my  hope  1  in  thee 
Ingulf  me,  whelm  in  Love  ! 


APPENDIX   V. 

Passages  translated  from  the  Morgante  Maggiore  of  Pulci. 
(See  Chapter  VII.  pp.  444  et  seq.)  Morgante  xviil  115. 

Answered  Margutte:  "Friend,  I  never  boasted: 

I  don't  believe  in  black  more  than  in  blue, 

But  in  fat  capons,  boiled,  or  may  be  roasted; 

And  I  believe  sometimes  in  butter  too, 

In  beer  and  must,  where  bobs  a  pippin  toasted; 

Sharp  liquor  more  than  sweet  I  reckon  true; 

But  mostly  to  old  wine  my  faith  I  pin, 

And  hold  him  saved  who  firmly  trusts  therein. 

"I  believe  in  the  tartlet  and  the  tart; 
One  is  the  mother,  t'other  is  her  son: 
The  perfect  paternoster  is  a  part 
Of  liver,  fried  in  slips,  three,  two,  or  one; 
.    Which  also  from  the  primal  liver  start: 

And  since  I'm  dry,  and  fain  would  swill  a  tun, 
If  Mahomet  forbids  the  juice  of  grape, 
I  reckon  him  a  nightmare,  phantom,  ape. 

"Apollo's  naught  but  a  delirious  vision, 
And  Trivigant  perchance  a  midnight  specter; 
Faith,  like  the  itch,  is  catching;  what  revision 
This  sentence  needs,  you'll  make,  nor  ask  the  rector: 
To  waste  no  words,  you  may  without  misprision 
Dub  me  as  rank  a  heretic  as  Hector: 
I  don't  disgrace  my  lineage,  nor  indeed 
Am  I  the  cabbage-ground  for  any  creed. 

''Faith's  as  man  gets  it,  this,  that,  or  another! 
See  then  what  sort  of  creed  I'm  bound  to  follow: 
For  you  must  know  a  Greek  nun  was  my  mother, 
My  sire  at  Brusa,  mid  the  Turks,  a  mollah; 


544  APPENDIX    V. 

I  played  the  rebeck  first,  and  made  a  pother 
About  the  Trojan  war,  flattered  Apollo, 
Praised  up  Achilles,  Hector,  Helen  fair, 
Not  once,  but  twenty  thousand  times,  I  swear. 

"Next,  growing  weary  of  my  light  guitar, 

I  donned  a  military  bow  and  quiver; 

One  day  within  the  mosque  I  went  to  war, 

And  shot  my  grave  old  daddy  through  the  liver: 

Then  to  my  loins  I  girt  this  scimitar, 

And  journeyed  forth  o'er  sea,  land,  town,  and  river 

Taking  for  comrades  in  each  holy  work 

The  congregated  sins  of  Greek  and  Turk. 

"That's  much  the  same  as  all  the  sins  of  hell ! 
I've  seventy-seven  at  least  about  me,  mortal; 
Summer  and  winter  in  my  breast  they  swell: 
Guess  now  how  many  venial  crowd  the  portal  1 
Twere  quite  impossible,  I  know  full  well, 
If  the  world  never  ended,  to  report  all 
The  crimes  I've  done  in  this  one  life  alone; 
Each  item  too  is  catalogued  and  known. 

"I  pray  you  listen  for  one  little  minute; 

The  skein  shall  be  unraveled  in  a  trice: — 

When  I've  got  cash,  I'm  gay  as  any  linnet, 

Cast  with  who  calls,  cut  cards,  and  fling  the  dice; 

All  times,  all  places,  or  the  devil's  in  it, 

Serve  me  for  play;  I've  spent  on  this  one  vice 

Fame,  fortune — staked  my  coat,  my  shirt,  my  breeches; 

I  hope  this  specimen  will  meet  your  wishes. 

"Don't  ask  what  juggler's  tricks  I  teach  the  boxes  1 

Or  whether  sixes  serve  me  when  I  call, 

Or  jumps  an  ace  up  I — Foxes  pair  with  foxes; 

The  same  pitch  tars  our  fingers,  one  and  all ! — 

Perhaps  I  don't  know  how  to  fleece  the  doxies? 

Perhaps  I  can't  cheat,  cozen,  swindle,  bawl  ? 

Perhaps  I  never  learned  to  patter  slang  ? — 

I  know  each  trick,  each  turn,  and  lead  the  gang. 


APPENDIX    V.  545 

"Gluttony  after  gambling's  my  prime  pleasure. 
Here  it  behooves  one  to  be  learned  and  wise, 
To  gauge  the  merits  and  the  virtues  measure 
Of  pheasant,  partridge,  fowl;  with  practiced  eyes 
Noting  each  part  of  every  dish  at  leisure, 
Seeking  where  tender  slice  or  morsel  lies; 
And  since  I've  touched  upon  this  point,  111  tell  ye 
How  best  to  grease  your  jaws  and  stuff  your  belly. 

"If  I  could  only  show  you  how  I  baste, 

If  you  could  see  me  turn  the  spit  and  ladle, 

You'd  swear  I  had  a  most  consummate  taste  1 

Of  what  ingredients  are  black-puddings  made  all  ? 

Not  to  be  burned,  and  not  to  run  to  waste, 

Not  over-hot  nor  frozen  in  the  cradle, 

Done  to  a  turn,  juicy,  not  bathed  in  butter, 

Smooth,  plump  and  swelling! — Don't  you  hear  'em  sputter? 

"About  fried  liver  now  receive  my  say: 

It  wants  five  pieces — count  them  on  your  fingers; 

It  must  be  round — keep  this  in  mind,  I  pray  1 — 

Fire  on  this  side  or  that  the  frying  injures  I 

Be  careful  not  to  brush  the  fat  away, 

Which  keeps  the  stew  soft  while  it  drops  and  lingers; 

You  must  divide  it  in  two  parts,  and  see 

That  each  part  is  apportioned  equally. 

"It  should  not  be  too  large;  but  there's  a  saw — 
Stint  not  your  bag-pudding  of  hose  and  jacket: 
Now  mark  me,  for  I'm  laying  down  the  law — 
Don't  overcook  the  morsel  in  the  packet; 
It  ought  to  melt,  midway  twixt  done  and  raw, 
Like  a  ripe  autumn  fig,  when  you  attack  it: 
Serve  it  up  hissing,  and  then  sound  the  tabors 
With  spice  and  orange  peel,  to  end  your  labors ! 

"I've  got  a  hundred  hints  to  give  the  wary! 
But  take  it  on  my  word,  ragouts  and  pies 
Are  the  true  test  of  science  culinary: 
A  lamprey  now — you'd  scarce  believe  your  eyes 


546  APPENDIX    r. 

To  see  its  stews  and  salmis,  how  they  vary  I 
Yet  all  are  known  and  numbered  by  the  wise. — 
True  gourmandize  hath  seventy-two  divisions, 
Besides  a  few  that  are  my  own  additions: 

"If  one  be  missed,  the  cooking's  spoiled,  that's  granted: 

Not  heaven  itself  can  save  a  ruined  platter  1 — 

From  now  till  noon  I'd  hold  your  sense  enchanted 

With  secrets  of  my  art,  if  I  dared  chatter  1 — 

I  kept  an  inn  at  Corinth  once,  and  wanted 

To  argue  publicly  upon  the  matter. — 

But  we  must  leave  this  point,  for  'twill  divert  you 

To  hear  about  another  cardinal  virtue. 

"Only  to  F  these  confidences  carry; 

Just  think  what  'twill  be  when  we  come  to  R ! 

I  plow  (no  nonsense)  with  ass,  cassiowary, 

Ox,  camel — any  other  beast  bizarre. 

A  thousand  bonfires,  prisons,  by  Lord  Harry, 

My  tricks  have  earned,  and  something  uglier  far: 

Where  my  head  will  not  pass,  I  stick  my  tail  in, 

And  what  I  like's  to  hear  the  good  folk  railing. 

"Take  me  to  balls,  to  banquets,  for  an  airing; 
I'll  do  my  duty  there  with  hands  and  feet: 
I'm  rude,  importunate,  a  bore,  and  daring; 
On  friends  no  less  than  foes  I'll  take  a  seat: 
To  shame  I've  said  farewell,  nor  am  I  sparing 
Of  fawning  like  a  cur  when  kicks  I  meet, 
But  tell  my  tale  and  swagger  up  and  down, 
And  with  a  thousand  fibs  each  exploit  crown. 

"No  need  to  ask  if  I've  kept  geese  at  grass, 
Purveyed  stewed  prunes,  taught  kittens  how  to  play. 
Suppose  a  thousand — widow,  wife,  and  lass: 
That's  just  about  my  figure,  I  dare  say. 
When  mid  the  women  by  mishap  I  pass, 
Six  out  of  every  five  become  my  prey; 
I  make  the  pretty  dears  so  deuc6d  cunning, 
They  beat  nurse,  maid,  duenna  out  of  running. 


APPENDIX    V.  547 

"Three  of  my  moral  qualities  are  these — 

Gluttony,  dicing,  as  I  said,  and  drinking: 

But,  since  we'll  drain  the  barrel  to  the  lees, 

Hear  now  the  fourth  and  foremost  to  my  thinking. 

No  need  of  hooks  or  ladders,  crows  or  keys, 

I  promise,  where  my  hands  are  1     Without  blinking 

I've  worn  the  cross  and  miter  on  my  forehead — 

No  pope's  nor  priest's,  but  something  much  more  horrid  1 

"Screws,  files  and  jemmies  are  my  stock  in  trade, 

Springs,  picklocks,  of  more  sorts  than  I  could  mention; 

Rope  and  wood  ladders,  levers,  slippers  made 

Of  noiseless  felt — my  patented  invention — 

Drowsing  all  ears,  where'er  my  feet  are  laid; 

I  fashioned  them  to  take  my  mind's  intention; 

Fire  too  that  by  itself  no  light  delivers, 

But  when  I  spit  on  it,  springs  up  and  quivers. 

"See  me  but  in  a  church  alone  and  frisky  1 
I'm  keener  on  the  robbing  of  an  altar 
Than  gaugers  when  they  scent  a  keg  of  whiskey; 
Then  to  the  alms-box  off  I  fly,  nor  falter: 
Sacristies  are  my  passion;  though  'tis  risky, 
With  cross  and  sacring  cup  I  never  palter, 
But  pull  the  crucifixes  down  and  stow  'em — 
Virgins  and  saints  and  effigies,  you  know  'em  1 

"I've  swept,  may-be,  a  hen-roost  in  my  day 
And  if  you'd  seen  me  loot  a  lot  of  washing, 
You'd  swear  that  never  maid  or  housewife  gay 
Could  clear  it  in  a  style  so  smart  and  dashing  1 
If  naught,  Morgante,  's  left  but  blooming  May 
To  strip,  I  steal  it — I  can't  keep  from  flashing  I 
I  ne'er  drew  difference  twixt  thine  and  mine: 
All  things,  to  start  with,  were  effects  divine. 

"But  ere  I  learned  to  thieve  thus  on  the  sly, 
I  ran  the  highway  rig  as  bold  as  any; 
I  would  have  robbed  the  biggest  saint  on  higa 
If  there  are  saints  above  us — for  a  penny; 


548  APPENDIX    P. 

But  loving  peace  and  fair  tranquillity, 

I  left  assassination  to  the  many: 

Not  that  my  will  was  weak — I'd  rather  say, 

Because  theft  mixed  with  murder  does  not  pay. 

"My  virtues  theological  now  smile  on  I 

God  knows  if  I  can  forge  or  falsify: 

I'll  turn  an  H  into  a  Greek  Upsilon — 

You  could  not  write  a  neater,  prettier  Y I 

I  gut  the  pages  of  a  book,  and  pile  on 

New  rubrics  for  new  chapters,  change  the  die, 

Change  title,  cover,  index,  name — the  poet 

Who  wrote  the  verse  I  counterfeit,  won't  know  it 

"False  oaths  and  perjuries  come  trickling  down 
Out  of  my  mouth  as  smooth  and  sweet  as  honey, 
Ripe  figs,  or  macaroni  nicely  brown, 
Or  anything  that's  natural  and  funny: 
Suppose  they  brain  some  guileless  count  or  clown; 
All's  one;  ware  heads,  I  cry,  and  pouch  my  money  i 
I've  set  on  foot  full  many  a  strife  and  wrangle, 
And  left  'em  in  inextricable  tangle. 

"With  ready  coin  I  always  square  a  scandal: 

Of  oaths  I've  got  a  perfect  stock  in  trade; 

Each  saint  supplies  my  speech  with  some  choice  handle; 

I  run  them  off  in  rows  from  A  to  Z: 

In  lying  no  man  holds  to  me  a  candle; 

Truth's  always  the  reverse  of  what  I've  said: — 

I'd  like  to  see  more  fire  than  land  or  water, 

In  heaven  and  earth  naught  but  plague,  famine,  slaughter. 

"Don't  fancy  that  in  fasting,  prayer  and  prate, 
Or  charities  my  spare  time  I  employ ! 
Not  to  seem  stiff,  I  beg  from  gate  ta  gate, 
And  always  utter  something  to  annoy: 
Proud,  envious,  tiresome  and  importunate — 
This  character  I've  cherished  from  a  boy; 
For  the  seven  deadly  sins  and  all  the  other 
Vices  have  brought  me  up  to  be  their  brother  1 


APPENDIX    V.  549 

"So  that  I'd  roam  the  world,  cross  ban  and  border, 
Hood-winked,  nor  ever  fear  to  miss  my  way; 
As  sweet  and  clean  as  any  lump  of  ordure, 
I  leave  my  trail  like  slugs  where'er  I  stray, 
Nor  seek  to  hide  that  slimy  self- recorder: 
Creeds,  customs,  friends  I  slough  from  day  to  day; 
Change  skin  and  climate,  as  it  suits  me  best, 
For  I  was  evil  even  in  the  nest 

"I've  left  a  whole  long  chapter  undiscussed 
Of  countless  peccadilloes  in  a  jumble: 
Were  I  to  catalogue  each  crime  and  lust, 
The  medley  of  my  sins  might  make  you  grumble: 
Twould  take  from  now  till  June  to  lay  the  dust, 
If  in  this  mud  heap  we  began  to  tumble; 
One  only  point  I'd  have  you  still  perpend — 
I  never  in  my  life  betrayed  a  friend." 

MORGANTE  XXV.    119. 

There  is  a  spirit,  Astarotte  height, 
Wise,  terrible,  and  fierce  exceedingly; 
In  Hell's  dark  caves  profound  he  hides  from  sight: 
No  goblin,  but  a  fiend  far  blacker  he. — 
Malagigi  summoned  him  one  deep  midnight, 
And  cried:  "How  feres  Rinaldo,  tell  to  me  I 
Then  will  I  say  what  more  I'd  have  thee  work; 
But  look  not  on  me  with  face  so  mirk  I 

"If  thou  wilt  do  this  bidding,  I  declare 
I'll  never  call  nor  conjure  thee  by  force, 
But  burn  upon  my  death  yon  book,  I  swear, 
Which  can  alone  compel  thee  in  due  course: 
So  shalt  thou  live  thenceforward  free  as  air." — 
Thereat  the  fiend  swaggered,  and  had  recourse 
To  threatening  wiles,  and  would  not  yield  an  inch, 
If  haply  he  could  make  the  master  flinch. 

But  when  he  saw  Malagigi's  blood  was  stirred, 
In  act  to  flash  the  ring  of  his  dread  art, 
And  hurl  him  to  some  tomb  by  book  and  word, 
He  threw  his  cards  UD  with  a  sudden  start. 


550  APPENDIX    V. 

And  cried:  "Of  your  will  yet  I've  nothing  heard." 

Then  Malagigi  answered:  "In  what  part 

Are  Ricciardetto  and  Rinaldo  now? 

Tell  all  the  truth,  or  you'll  repent,  I  vow  t  * 

MORGANTE  XXV.   135. 

Said  Astarotte:  "This  point  remains  obscure, 
Unless  I  thought  the  whole  night  through  thereon; 
Nor  would  my  best  of  judgments  be  secure; — 
The  paths  of  heaven  for  us  are  all  undone, 
Our  sight  of  things  to  be  is  no  more  sure 
Than  that  of  sages  gazing  on  the  sun; 
For  neither  man  nor  beast  would  'scape  from  Hell, 
Had  not  our  wings  been  shortened  when  we  fell. 

"Of  the  Old  Testament  I've  much  to  teach, 
And  of  what  happened  in  the  days  gone  by; 
But  all  things  do  not  come  within  our  reach: 
One  only  Power  there  is,  who  sees  on  high, 
As  in  a  glass  before  him,  all  and  each, 
Past,  present,  and  remote  futurity: 
He  who  made  all  that  is,  alone  knows  all, 
Nor  doth  the  Son  well  know  what  shall  befall. 

"Therefore  I  could  not  without  thought  intense 
Tell  thee  the  destined  fate  of  Charlemain: — 
Know  that  the  air  around  us  now  is  dense 
With  spirits;  in  their  hands  I  see  them  strain 
Astrolabe,  almanac,  and  tablet,  whence 
To  read  yon  signs  in  heaven  of  strife  and  bane — 
The  blood  and  treason,  overthrow  and  war, 
Menaced  by  Mars  in  Scorpio  angular. 

"And  for  thy  better  understanding,  he 

Is  joined  with  Saturn  in  the  ascendant,  so 

Charged  with  all-powerful  malignity 

That  e'en  the  wars  of  Turnus  had  less  woe. 

Slaughters  of  many  peoples  we  shall  see, 

With  dire  disasters  in  confusion  flow, 

And  change  of  states  and  mighty  realms;  for  1 

Know  that  these  signs  were  never  wont  to  lie. 


APPENDIX    V.  55  j 

"I  know  not  whether  thou  hast  fixed  thy  thought 
Upon  those  comets  which  appeared  of  late, 
Veru  and  Dominus  and  Ascon,  brought 
Treasons  and  wars  and  strife  to  indicate, 
With  deaths  of  princes  and  great  nobles  fraught? 
These,  too,  ne'er  falsified  the  word  of  fate. 
So  that  it  seems  from  what  I  learn  and  see, 
That  what  I  say,  and  worse,  is  like  to  be. 

"What  Gano  with  Marsilio  planned  before, 
I  know  not,  since  I  did  not  think  thereon: 
But  he's  the  same,  methinks,  he  was  of  yore; 
Wherefore  this  needs  no  divination: 
A  seat  is  waiting  for  him  at  hell's  core; 
And  if  his  life's  book  I  correctly  con, 
That  evil  soul  will  very  shortly  go 
To  weep  his  sins  in  everlasting  woe. " 

Then  spake  Malagigi:  "Something  thou  hast  said 
Which  holds  my  sense  and  reason  still  in  doubt, 
That  some  things  even  from  the  Son  are  hid; 
This  thy  dark  saying  I  can  fathom  not" 
Then  Astarotte:  "Thou,  it  seems,  hast  read 
But  ill  thy  Bible,  or  its  words  forgot; 
For  when  the  Son  was  asked  of  that  great  day, 
Only  the  Father  knows,  He  then  did  say. 

"  Mark  my  words,  Malagigi  1     Thou  shall  hear, 
Now  if  thou  wilt,  the  fiend's  theology: 
Then  to  thy  churchmen  go,  and  make  it  clear. 
You  say:  Three  Persons  in  one  entity, 
One  substance;  and  to  this  we,  too,  adhere: 
One  flawless,  pure,  unmixed  activity: — 
Wherefore  it  follows  from  what  went  before, 
That  this  alone  is  what  you  all  adore. 

"One  mover,  whence  all  movement  is  impelled: 
One  order,  whence  all  order  hath  its  rise; 
One  cause,  whereby  all  causes  are  compelled; 
One  power,  whence  flow  all  powers  and  energies; 


552 


APPENDIX    V. 

One  fire,  wherein  all  radiances  are  held; 

One  principle,  which  every  truth  implies; 

One  knowledge,  whence  all  wisdom  hath  been  given; 

One  Good,  which  made  all  good  in  earth  and  heaven. 

"This  is  that  Father  and  that  ancient  King, 
Who  hath  made  all  things  and  can  all  things  know, 
But  cannot  change  His  own  wise  ordering, 
Else  heaven  and  earth  to  ruin  both  would  go. 
Having  lost  His  friendship,  I  no  more  may  wing 
My  flight  unto  the  mirror,  where  our  woe 
Perchance  e'en  now  is  clearly  shown  to  view; 
Albeit  futurity  I  never  knew. 

/} 
"If  Lucifer  had  known  the  doom  to  be, 

He  had  not  brought  those  fruits  of  rashness  forth; 

Nor  had  he  ruined  for  eternity, 

Seeking  his  princely  station  in  the  North; 

But  being  impotent  all  things  to  see, 

He  and  we  all  were  damned  'neath  heaven  and  earth; 

And  since  he  was  the  first  to  sin,  he  first 

Fell  to  Giudecca,  and  still  fares  the  worst 

"Nor  had  we  vainly  tempted  all  the  blest, 
Who  now  sit  crowned  with  stars  in  Paradise, 
If,  as  I  said,  a  veil  by  God's  behest 
Had  not  been  drawn  before  our  mental  eyes; 
Nor  would  that  Saint,  of  Saints  the  first  and  best 
Been  tempted,  as  your  Gospel  testifies, 
And  borne  by  Satan  to  the  pinnacle 
Where  at  the  last  he  saw  His  miracle. 

,  ^ 
"And  forasmuch  as  He  makes  nothing  ill,      >- 

And  all  hath  circumscribed  by  fixed  decrees, 
And  what  He  made  is  present  with  Him  still, 
Being  established  on  just  premises, 
Know  that  this  Lord  repents  not  of  His  will; 
Nay,  if  one  saith  that  change  hath  been,  he  sees 
Falsehood  for  truth,  in  sense  and  judgment  blind 
For  what  is  now,  was  in  the  primal  mind. " 


APPENDIX    F.  553 

"Tell  me,"  then  answered  Malagigi,  "more,    ^ 
Since  thou'rt  an  angel  sage  and  rational  1 
If  that  first  Mover,  whom  we  all  adore, 
Within  His  secret  soul  foreknew  your  fell, 
If  time  and  hour  were  both  foreseen  before, 
His  sentence  must  be  found  tyrannical, 
Lacking  both  justice  and  true  charity; 
Since,  while  creating,  and  while  damning,  He 

"Foreknew  you  to  be  frail  and  formed  in  sin; 
Nathless  you  call  Him  just  and  piteous, 
Nor  was  there  room,  you  say,  pardon  to  win: — 
This  makes  our  God  the  partisan  of  those 
Angels  who  stayed  the  gates  of  heaven  within, 
Who  knew  the  true  from  false,  discerning  thus 
Which  side  would  prosper,  which  would  lose  the  day, 
Nor  went,  like  you,  with  Lucifer  astray." 

Astarotte,  like  the  devil,  raged  with  pain; 
Then  cried:  "That  just  Sabaoth  loved  no  more 
Michael  than  Lucifer;  nor  made  he  Cain 
More  apt  than  Abel  to  shed  brother's  gore: 
If  one  than  Nimrod  was  more  proud  and  vain, 
If  the  other,  all  unlike  to  Gabriel,  swore 
He'd  not  repent  nor  bellow  psalms  to  heaven, 
It  was  free-will  condemned  both  unforgiven, 

"That  was  the  single  cause  that  damned  us  all: 
His  clemency,  moreover,  gave  full  time, 
Wherein  'twas  granted  us  to  shun  the  fall, 
And  by  repentance  to  compound  our  crime; 
But  now  we've  fallen  from  grace  beyond  recall: 
Just  was  our  sentence  from  that  Judge  sublime; 
His  foresight  shortened  not  our  day  of  grace, 

For  timely  penitence  aye  finds  a  place. 

*x 

"Just  is  the  Father,  Son,  and  just  the  Word! 
His  justice  with  great  mercy  was  combined: 
Through  pride  no  more  than  thanklessness  we  erred; 
That  was  our  sin  malignant  and  unkind- 


554  APPENDIX    V. 

Nor  hath  remorse  our  stubborn  purpose  stirred, 
Seeing  that  evil  nourished  in  the  mind 
And  will  of  those  who  knew  the  good,  and  were 
Untcmpted,  never  yet  was  changed  to  fair. 

"Adam  knew  not  the  nature  of  his  sin; 
Therefore  his  primal  error  was  forgiven, 
Because  the  tempter  took  him  in  a  gin: 
Only  his  disobedience  angered  heaven; 
Therefore,  though  cast  from  Eden,  he  might  win 
Grace,  when  repentance  from  his  heart  had  driven 
The  wicked  will,  with  peace  to  end  his  strife, 
And  mercy  also  in  eternal  life. 

"But  the  angelic  nature,  once  debased, 
Can  never  more  to  purity  return: 
It  sinned  with  science  and  corrupted  taste: 
Whence  in  despair  incurable  we  burn. 
Now,  if  that  wise  one  answered  not,  nor  raised 
His  voice,  when  Pilate  asked  of  him  to  learn 
What  was  the  truth,  the  truth  was  at  his  side; 
This  ignorance  was  therefore  justified. 

"Pilate  was  lost>  because  in  doing  well 
He  persevered  not  when  he  washed  his  hand; 
And  Judas,  too,  beyond  redemption  fell, 
Because,  though  penitent  at  last,  he  banned 
Hope,  without  which  no  soul  escapes  from  hell: 
His  doom  no  Origen  shall  countermand, 
Nor  who  to  Judas  give  what's  meant  for  Judah — 
In  diebus  Hits  salvabiiur  Juda. 

"Thus  there  is  one  first  Power  in  heaven  who  knew 
All  things,  by  whom  all  things  were  also  made: 
Making  and  damning  us,  He  still  was  true; 
On  Truth  and  Justice  all  His  work  is  laid: 
Future  and  past  are  present  to  his  view; 
For  it  must  follow,  as  I  elsewhere  said, 
That  the  whole  world  before  His  face  should  lie, 
From  whom  proceeds  force,  virtue,  energy. 


APPENDIX    V.  555 

"  But  now  that  thou  hast  bound  me  to  relate, 
My  master  thou,  the  cause  of  our  mischance, 
Thou  fain  would'st  hear  why  He  who  rules  o'er  fate, 
And  of  our  fall  foresaw  each  circumstance, 
Labored  in  vain,  and  made  us  reprobate? — 
Sealed  is  that  rubric,  closed  from  every  glance, 
Reserved  for  Him,  the  Lord  victorious: 
I  know  not,  I  can  only  answer  thus  1 

"Nor  speak  I  this  to  put  thy  mind  to  proof; 
But  forasmuch  as  I  discern  that  men 
Weave  on  this  warp  of  doubts  a  misty  woof, 
Seeking  to  learn;  albeit  they  cannot  ken 
Whence  flows  the  Nile — the  Danube's  not  enough  I 
Assure  thy  soul,  nor  ask  the  how  and  when, 
That  heaven's  high  Master,  as  the  Psalmist  taught, 
Is  just  and  true  in  all  that  he  hath  wrought 

"The  things  whereof  I  speak  are  known  not  by 

Poet  or  prophet,  moralist  or  sage: 

Yet  mortal  men  in  their  presumption  try 

To  rank  the  hierarchies,  stage  over  stage  I 

A  chieftain  among  Seraphim  was  I; 

Yet  knew  not  what  in  many  a  learned  page 

Denys  and  Gregory  wrote  1 — Full  surely  they 

Who  paint  heaven  after  earth  will  go  astray  I 

"But  above  all  things  see  thou  art  not  led 

By  elves  and  wandering  sprites,  a  tricksy  kind, 

Who  never  speak  one  word  of  truth,  but  shed 

Doubt  and  suspicion  on  the  hearer's  mind; 

Their  aim  is  injury  toward  fools  ill-sped: 

And,  mark  this  well,  they  ne'er  have  been  confined 

To  glass  or  water,  but  reside  in  air, 

Playing  their  pranks  here,  there,  and  everywhere. 

"From  ear  to  ear  they  pass,  and  'tis  their  vaunt 
Ever  to  make  things  seem  that  are  not  so: 
For  one  delights  in  horseplay,  jeer  and  jaunt; 
One  deals  in  science;  one  pretends  to  show 


556  APPENDIX    V. 

Where  treasures  iurk  in  some  forgotten  haunt: 
Others,  more  grave,  futurity  foreknow: — 
But  now  I  ve  given  thee  hints  enough,  to  tell 
That  courtesy  can  even  be  found  in  Hell  1 " 

MORGANTE  XXV.    282. 
And  when  Rinaldo  had  learned  all  his  need, 
"Astarotte,"  he  cried,  "thou  art  a  perfect  friend, 
And  I  am  bound  to  thee  henceforth  indeed ! 
This  I  say  truly:  if  God's  will  should  bend, 
If  grace  divine  should  e'er  so  much  concede 
As  to  reverse  heaven's  ordinance,  amend 
Its  statutes,  sentences,  or  high  decrees, 
I  will  remember  these  thy  services. 

"More  at  the  present  time  I  cannot  give: 
The  soul  returns  to  Him  from  whom  it  flew: 
The  rest  of  us,  thou  knowest,  will  not  live  1 

0  love  supreme,  rare  courtesy  and  new." — 

1  have  no  doubt  that  all  my  friends  believe 
This  verse  belongs  to  Petrarch;  yet  'tis  true 
Rinaldo  spoke  it  very  long  ago: 

But  who  robs  not,  is  called  a  rogue,  you  know. — 

Said  Astarotte:  "Thanks  for  your  good  will  1 
Yet  shall  those  keys  be  lost  for  us  for  ever: 
High  treason  was  our  crime,  measureless  ill. 
Thrice  happy  Christians  1     One  small  tear  can  sever 
Your  bonds ! — One  sigh,  sent  from  the  contrite  will: 
Lord,  to  Thee  only  did  I  sin ! — But  never 
Shall  we  find  grace:  we  sinned  once;  now  we  lie 
Sentenced  to  hell  for  all  eternity. 

"If  after,  say,  some  thousand  million  ages 
We  might  have  hope  yet  once  to  see  again 
The  least  spark  of  that  Love,  this  pang  that  rages 
Here  at  the  core,  could  scarce  be  reckoned  pain  1 — 
But  wherefore  annotate  such  dreary  pages? 
To  wish  for  what  can  never  be,  is  vain. 
Therefore  I  mean  with  your  kind  approbation 
To  change  the  subject  of  our  conversation." 


APPENDIX    V.  557 

MORGANTE  XXV.    73. 
What  God  ordains  is  no  chance  miracle. 
Next  prodigies  and  signs  in  heaven  were  seen; 
For  the  sun  suddenly  turned  ghastly  pale, 
And  clouds  with  rain  o'erladen  flew  between, 
Muttering  low  prelude  to  their  thunder-knell, 
As  when  Jove  shakes  the  world  with  awful  spleen: 
Next  wind  and  fury,  hail  and  tempest,  hiss 
O'er  earth  and  skies — Good  God,  what  doom  is  this? 

Then  while  they  cowered  together  dumb  with  dread, 
Lightning  flashed  forth  and  hurtled  at  their  side, 
Which  struck  a  laurel's  leaf-embowered  head, 
And  burned  it;  cleft  unto  the  earth,  it  died. 
O  Phoebus !  yon  fair  curls  of  gold  outspread ! 
How  could'st  thou  bear  to  see  thy  love,  thy  pride, 
Thus  thunder-smitten  ?     Hath  thy  sacred  bay 
Lost  her  inviolable  rights  to-day  ? 

Marsilio  cries:  "Mahoundl     What  can  it  mean  1 
What  doleful  mystery  lies  hid  beneath  ? 
O  Bianciardino,  to  our  State,  I  ween, 
This  omen  brings  some  threat  of  change  or  death  1 " 
But,  while  he  spoke,  an  earthquake  shook  the  scene, 
Nay,  shook  both  hemispheres  with  blustering  breath: 
Falseron's  face  changed  hue,  grew  cold  and  hot, 
And  even  Bianciardino  liked  it  not 

Yet  none  for  very  fear  dared  move  a  limb, 
The  while  above  their  heads  a  sudden  flush 
Spread  like  live  fire,  that  made  the  daylight  dim; 
And  from  the  font  they  saw  the  water  gush 
In  gouts  and  crimson  eddies  from  the  brim; 
And  what  it  sprinkled,  with  a  livid  flush 
Burned:  yea,  the  grass  flared  up  on  every  side; 
For  the  well  boiled,  a  fierce  and  sanguine  tide. 

Above  the  fountain  rose  a  locust-tree, 
The  tree  where  Judas  hanged  himself  'tis  said; 
This  turned  the  heart  of  Gano  sick  to  see, 
For  now  it  ran  with  ruddy  sweat  and  bled, 


558  APPENDIX    V. 

Then  dried  both  trunk  and  branches  suddenly, 
Moulting  its  scattered  leaves  by  hundreds  dead; 
And  on  his  pate  a  bean  came  tumbling  down, 
Which  made  the  hairs  all  bristle  on  his  crown. 

The  beasts  who  roamed  at  will  within  the  park, 

Set  up  a  dismal  howl  and  wail  of  woe; 

Then  turned  and  rushed  amuck  with  yelp  and  bark, 

Butting  their  horns  and  charging  to  and  fro: 

Marsilio  and  his  comrades  in  the  dark 

Watched  all  dismayed  to  see  how  things  would  go; 

And  none  knew  well  what  he  should  say  or  do, 

So  dreadful  was  heaven's  wrath  upon  the  crew. 

MORGANTE  XXV.   115. 
I  had  it  in  my  mind  once  to  curtail 
This  story,  knowing  not  how  I  should  bring 
Rinaldo  all  that  way  to  Roncesvale, 
Until  an  angel  straight  from  heaven  did  wing, 
And  showed  me  Arnald  to  recruit  my  tale: 
He  cries,  "Hold,  Louis!     Wherefore  cease  to  sing ? 
Perchance  Rinaldo  will  turn  up  in  time  I " 
So,  just  as  he  narrates,  I'll  trim  my  rhyme. 

I  must  ride  straight  as  any  arrow  flies, 
Nor  mix  a  fib  with  all  the  truths  I  say; 
This  is  no  story  to  be  stuffed  with  lies  1 
If  I  diverge  a  hand's  breadth  from  the  way, 
One  croaks,  one  scolds,  while  everybody  cries, 
"Ware  madman  1 "  when  he  sees  me  trip  or  stray. 
I've  made  my  mind  up  to  a  hermit's  life, 
So  irksome  are  the  crowd  and  all  their  strife. 

Erewhile  my  Academe  and  my  Gymnasia 

Were  in  the  solitary  woods  I  love, 

Whence  I  can  see  at  will  Afric  or  Asia; 

There  nymphs  with  baskets  tripping  through  the  grove, 

Shower  jonquils  at  my  feet  or  colocasia: 

Far  from  the  town's  vexations  there  I'd  rove, 

Haunting  no  more  your  Areopagi, 

Where  folk  delight  in  calumny  and  lie. 


APPENDIX    V.  559 


MORGANTE  XXVII.    6. 

Then  answered  Baldwin:  "If  my  sire  in  sooth 
Hath  brought  us  here  by  treason,  as  you  say, 
Should  I  survive  this  battle,  by  God's  truth, 
With  this  good  sword  I  will  my  father  slay  1 — 
But,  Roland,  I'm  no  traitor — I  forsooth, 
Who  followed  thee  with  love  as  clear  as  day  1 — 
How  could'st  thou  fling  worse  insult  on  thy  friend? 
Then  with  fierce  force  the  mantle  he  did  rend, 

And  cried:  "I  will  return  into  the  fight, 
Since  thou  hast  branded  me  with  treason,  thou ! 
I  am  no  traitor  I     May  God  give  me  might, 
As  living  thou  shalt  see  me  ne'er  from  now  I " 
Straight  toward  the  Paynim  battle  spurs  the  knight, 
Still  shouting,  "Thou  hast  done  me  wrong,  I  vow!" 
Roland  repents  him  of  the  words  he  spake, 
When  the  youth,  mad  with  passion,  from  him  brake. 

MORGANTE   XXVIII.    138. 

I  ask  not  for  that  wreath  of  bay  or  laurel 
Which  on  Greek  brows  or  Roman  proudly  shone: 
With  this  plain  quill  and  style  I  do  not  quarrel, 
Nor  have  I  sought  to  sing  of  Helicon: 
My  Pegasus  is  but  a  rustic  sorrel; 
Untutored  mid  the  graves  I  still  pipe  on: 
Leave  me  to  chat  with  Corydon  and  Thyrsis; 
I'm  no  good  shepherd,  and  can't  mend  my  verses. 

Indeed  I'm  not  a  rash  intrusive  claimant, 
Like  the  mad  piper  of  those  ancient  days, 
From  whom  Apollo  stripped  his  living  raiment, 
Nor  quite  the  Satyr  that  my  face  bewrays. 
A  nobler  bard  shall  rise  and  win  the  payment 
Fame  showers  on  loftier  style  and  worthier  lays: 
While  I  mid  beech-woods  and  plain  herdsmen  dwell, 
Who  love  the  rural  muse  of  Pulci  well 


560  APPENDIX    V. 

Ill  tempt  the  waters  in  my  little  wherry, 

Seeking  safe  shallows  where  a  skiff  may  swim : 

My  only  care  is  how  to  make  men  merry 

With  these  thick-crowding  thoughts  that  take  my  whim: 

Tis  right  that  all  things  in  this  world  should  vary; — 

Various  are  wits  and  faces,  stout  and  slim, 

One  dotes  on  white,  while  one  dubs  black  sublime, 

And  subjects  vary  both  in  prose  and  rhyme. 


APPENDIX    VI. 

Translations  of  Elegiac  Verses  by  Girolanio  Beni^tieni  and 

Michelangelo  Buonarroti. 

(See  page  321). 

The  heavenly  sound  is  hushed,  from  earth  is  riven 

The  harmony  of  that  delighted  lyre, 

Which  leaves  the  world  in  grief,  to  gladden  heaven. 
Yea,  even  as  our  sobs  from  earth  aspire, 

Mourning  his  loss,  so  ring  the  jocund  skies 

With  those  new  songs,  and  dance  the  angelic  choir. 
Ah  happy  he,  who  from  this  vale  of  sighs, 

Poisonous  and  dark,  heavenward  hath  flown,  and  lost 

Only  the  vesture,  frail  and  weak,  that  dies  1 
Freed  from  the  world,  freed  from  the  tempest-tossed 

Warfare  of  sin,  his  splendor  now  doth  gaze 

Full  on  the  face  of  God  through  endless  days. 


Thou 'it  dead  of  dying,  and  art  made  divine; 

Nor  need'st  thou  fear  to  change  or  life  or  will; 

Wherefore  my  soul  well-nigh  doth  envy  thine. 
Fortune  and  time  across  thy  threshold  still 

Shall  dare  not  pass,  the  which  mid  us  below 

Bring  doubtful  joyance  blent  with  certain  ilL 
Clouds  are  there  none  to  dim  for  thee  heaven's  glow; 

The  measured  hours  compel  not  thee  at  all; 

Chance  or  necessity  thou  canst  not  know. 
Thy  splendor  wanes  not  when  our  night  doth  fall. 

Nor  waxes  with  day's  light  however  clear, 

Nor  when  our  suns  the  season's  warmth  recall 

END    OF    THE    FIRST    PART. 


Si-Jo.  . 

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